Arrogance and Aggression
by cherry-sodas
Summary: 'Arrogance and Aggression' is a frothy Jane Austen-esque AU about love and friendship among the greasers (and their sisters). Dallas Winston is aggressive. Lucy Bennet is arrogant. Though she vows to hate him for the rest of her life, she begrudgingly realizes she may be wrong about him and about herself.
1. Chapter 1

**So, yeah, it's an OC-heavy fic. But it's all in the name of experimenting with feminist theory. Hinton owns _The Outsiders. __Pride and Prejudice _is in the public domain, but I wouldn't own that, either.**

* * *

Chapter One

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single greaser in possession of a good switchblade must be in want of a fight.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering the East (not the North) side of the neighborhood and slashing an arbitrary set of tires, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding gangs that he is considered a threat until the biggest, coldest, and meanest gang member stomps him into the ground to show him who is the proverbial boss. In the meantime, of course, he may be considered the rightful property of some one or other of their sisters.

That afternoon, the sisters and some of their friends sat at their regular lunch table in the high school, gossiping freely about the rumble that had taken place between their brothers and some of their friends. Rumbles held different but equal significance to both the young men and the young women on the East Side. For the young men, it was a chance to show one another their physical prowess and domination—to settle scores that had long been uneven. For the young women, it was a chance to admire the young men's physical prowess and domination—to dream of what it would be like to experience _all that man _in the comfort of their own homes.

"Johnny's got two black eyes," Lilly Cade spoke of her elder brother with abject fascination. "It's almost like he's got two holes in his face where his eyes should be. It's just awful."

"Poor thing," Katie Mathews mused over her bologna sandwich. "That's the good thing about Two-Bit. He's so drunk, even if he gets beat to a pulp, he can barely feel it."

"How's your brother, Sadie?" Carrie Shepard leaned over the table and asked the girl one seat down from the head of the table.

"Yeah, Sadie, have you spoken to Soda?" Jane Randle asked. Both girls had slight twinges of worry in their voices. Sadie Curtis folded her hands in her lap to keep from sighing.

"You could talk to them, you know," she said. "Or you could ask your brothers. It just so happens they were there last night, too."

"That's what I'm worried about," Carrie said, for her brothers fought against Sadie's brothers much of the time, including on the previous night.

"Yeah, besides, Steve won't talk to me about Soda," Jane said. "He says it's none of my business."

"Maybe it's not."

The rest of the table went quiet. Sadie turned her head to the left to smile faintly at the girl at the head of the table. Slowly, the other girls began to frown.

"You're never any fun, Lucy," Katie said. "Just because you don't like any of the boys in town doesn't mean we can't talk about them."

"See, that's the problem," Lucy said. "That's all you _ever _talk about. You don't want to talk about music or books or what we're having for lunch today, and I _know _you all listen to music, read books, and eat lunch. And you're telling me all you wanna do in life is ask Sadie about how her brothers are digging after the rumble? I don't think so."

Lucy Bennet had always felt out of place in her group of friends at school. A transplant from all around the country (most recently Detroit), Lucy and her parents had moved to Tulsa three years earlier after her father, an English professor, had been offered a new adjunct position at the local university. He had never been up for tenure, and as a consequence, Lucy moved around for as long as she could remember. Her father came from a rich family once, she had heard, but the moment he expressed interested in literature, not medicine, his family had disowned him. Lucy felt adrift in a neighborhood where the dropout rate was higher than the graduation rate. It was all her father could afford, but it was far less than what he wanted for his favorite bibliophile.

She began to feel more at home when she met her best friend, Sadie Curtis, whose penchant for silly paperbacks and classic novels alike was enough to keep her grounded. When she had moved at the start of high school, she hadn't realized how lawless Tulsa could be. Even Sadie's brothers, some of the nicest young men Lucy had met in her travels, were getting into and starting fights with other guys on the streets.

More than anything, Lucy didn't understand how violence was more attractive to her friends than were books, films, or music. Why was a punch in the nose dreamy, but the ability to recite whole passages from Shakespeare was boring? Why were bruises such turn-ons when there were love songs to be sung? It didn't make a difference to dwell on it. Lucy knew, from the age of fourteen, that even if she were to fall in love with a guy from the neighborhood, it would be the one who got into the least amount of fights and rarely, if ever, turned up drunk. Now that she was seventeen—approaching eighteen with ferocious speed—she was beginning to think it was too much to ask.

The idea that her friends could talk about more than boys was beginning to seem like too much to ask as well. Immediately after Lucy criticized the girls for talking about nothing but the boys, Lilly's dark eyes flickered over to her in coy suggestion.

"You know what I think you need, Lucy?" she asked.

"I don't know why, but I'm really afraid you're gonna say _an enema._"

Sadie nearly snorted. Lilly turned up her nose in confusion.

"A what?" she asked.

"Doesn't matter," Lucy said. "Go on, Lil. What do I need?"

"I think you just need to go on a date!" Lilly said, nearly throwing her arms in the air. "I heard a rumor Johnny's figuring on asking you out today."

A choral _ooh_ took over the lunch table, though Sadie's _ooh _was admittedly more sarcastic than the others'. Lucy did not reply. In the most bizarre of ways, she cared for Lilly Cade like her own sister. Someone needed to, after all—the shouting that went on in that house was enough to chill Lucy to the bone. But despite her young age—fifteen, in a group filled with seniors—surely Lilly would have understood that Johnny wasn't Lucy's perfect match. Certainly, he had no police record, and Lucy had never seen him drunk, but his never-ending silences and nervousness never seemed to attract Lucy. After Lucy had discovered that Johnny was keen on her, she told Sadie that she didn't feel the same way. Sadie rolled her brown eyes and said, "Shoot, Lucy, sometimes I think you're writing a script for us, but we don't know any of the lines."

"I'd pay to see that," Carrie said.

"See what?" Lucy asked. "Johnny ask me out?"

"Well, that, but I'd also pay to see you go on a date at all."

The rest of the girls—this time, even Sadie—had a good laugh. Lucy straightened out her shoulders and puffed out her bust to disguise the fact that she actually wanted to sink into her chair and become invisible.

"Lucy," Katie said. "I hope you never go out on a date."

"How come, Katie?" Lucy asked, though she thought she knew the answer.

"Well, if you did, I'd have to die of shock," Katie said between laughs. "And that'd be sad, since I was always figuring I'd get hit by a bus!"

She burst out laughing. It ran in the family.

"Have you been trying to get hit by a bus, Kate?" Sadie asked.

"Only on the weekends."

Suddenly, Lilly stood up from her chair and made her way over to Lucy. Though she was shaking—she always shook when she spoke to Lucy Bennet one-on-one—she managed to get the right words out.

"Listen, Lucy," she said. "I don't really mean that stuff about not buying you on a date. You're real pretty. Any of the guys would be lucky to have you."

Lucy swallowed a bite of her sandwich. "Well, thank you, Lil, but that's not really what I…"

"Come to the Dingo with us tonight? Some of the guys will be there, like Johnny, and I think it'd be a good idea for you to just give him a chance."

"Lil, that's kind of exactly the opposite…"

"You can have all the popcorn you want."

Lucy's blue eyes lit up, and she saw, for the first time that afternoon, Lilly was truly connecting with her.

"I'll be there," Lucy said.

Lilly beamed and took her seat again. As she sat back down, Lucy had to shake her head and laugh. Lilly might be the youngest at the lunch table, but she was a clever little one. After all, she knew that Lucy Bennet could be bribed into just about anything if someone offered her popcorn first. To this point, it had always worked. That night, Lilly would put it to the test.

* * *

Sadie was the only one of Lucy's friends whom she trusted completely. She had always been interested in more than parties, fights, and boys, which Lucy assumed was because her elder brother, who looked after her after her parents were killed, was overprotective, and she taught her younger brother to read when he was three. That night, before they headed to the drive-in, they headed up to Lucy's room and discussed the matter of Johnny in a way that Lucy dared not bring up in front of the others.

"I don't understand why Lilly thinks that would be a good idea," Lucy said, putting on her lipstick. Sadie stared at the tube of lipstick on the dresser with envy. The Bennet family had just a bit more money than the average family in the neighborhood, so when Lucy brought out "Cherries in the Snow," Sadie bit her own lip in envy, hoping the pressure would turn her lips as red as they would be if her brothers let her buy Revlon.

"She thinks it's a good idea because she's fifteen," Sadie said. "She thinks that you've gotta like anybody who likes you. Tell you the truth, sometimes I don't think she's wrong."

Lucy never understood such a line of thinking. When she was a little girl, her father used to tell her that once she was old enough to be married, being married wouldn't matter anymore. Though she never quite understood what in the world that could mean, she took it to heart because she did not like what she saw of most people who were married. Lilly and Johnny's parents were married, and she'd seen them. What made her think that a relationship she was in would be any better? A marriage? Her father always told her she would be hard pressed to find that someone who could keep up with her (for she talked too fast and thought faster), and at this point, she was sure he was right.

"There has to be more for me than this," Lucy said. "You know, like that book I just read, where the girl rejects the marriage proposal from the clergyman because she doesn't like him, and she wants to do what she wants to do, without anybody's influence."

"_Pride and Prejudice_? Lucy, Elizabeth marries Mr. Darcy in the end. That's the point."

"Not that one. The other one—the one that _Pride and Prejudice _stole from. You know, the one with all the letters that was written in America. I brought it up in English class, but Mr. Syme said he'd never heard of it. Title's gone and jumped out of my head."

"Oh, I know that one. _The Coquette _or something. Ponyboy was reading it, same time you were." She paused, and then:

"Lucy! That girl died in the end because she used her heart and not her head."

"There was blood involved, Sadie, but I don't think it was blood in anybody's heart."

"Aww, shoot, you know what I mean. Is that really how you want to end up? Dead because you can't afford to take care of yourself?"

"I…"

"I know. You've never thought of it that way. But consider for a second that some of us have."

Lucy became quiet for a moment or two. It felt much longer. Sadie put a lot of thought into finding someone to marry almost as soon as she finished high school, but it wasn't always clear why. Sadie was every bit as book smart as her younger brother, Ponyboy, who'd skipped a few grades in school and was on the fast track for academic and athletic scholarships to college. She could have done the same thing if she'd just gone out for the girls' track team like her older brother, Darry, had encouraged her to. But Sadie didn't always see things the way she ought to see them. She saw things the way she thought her brothers wanted her to see them.

"Well, I'm going to figure out a way to make money on my own," Lucy said. "Hopefully by writing a couple of books people like and not by turning to a life of thievery."

"Oh, I don't know," Sadie laughed. She tossed her long, dark gold hair over her shoulders. "It could be fun to be _dangerous._"

"Oh, yeah, I plum forgot. I've always wanted a dangerous man."

Sadie laughed at Lucy to keep from tearing into her. She flopped down on Lucy's bed, the softest pillows she had ever felt, and looked up at the ceiling.

"You're a mess," Sadie said, careful not to look Lucy in the eye. "One of these days, you're gonna get your act together, and you're gonna see how silly you were before. 'This guy's too quiet.' 'This guy's too mean.' 'This guy's too nice.' 'This guy's too violent.' Glory, but you sound like Goldilocks, Lucy. And that's just silly."

"I'm not silly," Lucy said, firmly planting herself on the bed and forcing Sadie to move over. "I've got… I don't know, I've got standards, is all."

"Mmm-hmm. And you know what they say about people who let their _standards_ get in the way of perfectly good friendships."

Sadie knew Lucy wasn't worried about any standards. She was thought to be arrogant, but neither would dare say so aloud. To say it would mean blood on the floor.

"What do they say, Sadie?"

Sadie sat up and looked Lucy dead in the eye. To that point, she was the only person Lucy knew who could stand to look at her that closely.

"They end up dead, like that girl in that story. Or like the girl in that other story you made me read. What's her name? Daisy Miller?"

"Yeah, I know. What's the difference between 'em?"

"I don't know. Hundred years or so."

Lucy smirked to keep herself from laughing. She looked up at the ceiling as though it would offer her something more than protection from the cold, and in those last moments before they left for the Dingo, she and Sadie contemplated how Lucy might react if Johnny found the nerve to ask her for a date that night.


	2. Chapter 2

There were essentially three things everyone in the neighborhood knew: There was a difference between a greaser and a hood, the Curtises kept their couch open to anyone who needed it, and Jane Randle was in love with Sodapop Curtis.

When they thought on it, the whole neighborhood was a little close for comfort. Jane was Steve's sister, and Steve was Soda's best friend. Carrie, who was Tim and Curly Shepard's littlest sister, was not so secretly in love with Ponyboy Curtis, but at least they weren't in _exactly _the same gang. Katie was Two-Bit's only sister, Lilly was Johnny's, and Sadie was caught in the middle of all of it, as she had three single brothers to contend with. Lucy was the only one who didn't belong. Sometimes, she thought if Sadie hadn't asked her about the book she was reading on the first day of high school, then she wouldn't have gotten mixed up in any of this mess. Sometimes, it got so messy—with the blood and the bull—Lucy almost wished Sadie hadn't approached her in the lunchroom that day.

Lucy thought about Jane. She really did love her. Both of her parents had rejected both her and her brother, and yet, Jane managed to keep a sweet temper. She had gotten into a few fights with other girls behind the high school before, but they were always to defend her brother or her friends or the way she insisted on wearing mini skirt. That was taboo for two reasons. It was odd to see a greaser girl in one, for one thing, and for another, she'd gotten the money to buy the skirt by gradually pickpocketing guys in the hallway at school. Even Jane, whose smile lit up a room and who spent all of algebra thinking about how she would flirt Soda once she got to the DX after school, could pack a few punches here or there.

Jane had even gotten into a fight for Lucy. It was how they met as freshmen. One girl or another said that Lucy was no greaser and that she was just dressing like one for attention, and Jane, who stood at no more than five feet high, came barreling down the hallway and pushed the girl into the parking lot to show her what was what. Lucy remembered it almost like a cartoon. Jane and the other girl had gotten a weeklong suspension for that fight, and Steve was awfully upset with Jane for getting into trouble. But from then on, Lucy figured, even if she had been violent, that Jane was somebody she could depend on.

Jane's tendency to fantasize about boys—worse, boys that they knew in real life, not the ones you could rip out pictures of in the magazines—was a different story. On the one hand, Lucy saw the appeal of Sodapop. He was sixteen, like Jane, handsome for a regular guy, extremely agreeable, and he always seemed to be around, giving them ample opportunity to talk to each other. And talk, they did, only Jane hadn't realized she no longer had to behave like a little girl with a secret love, and Sodapop had just broken it off with his longtime girlfriend, Sandy. Lucy didn't understand why Jane didn't just jump on in right away, but Jane had told her that she had to be sensitive, especially since Sodapop was such a sensitive guy. That, and girls didn't chase after guys, no matter which side of the city they grew up on. She'd have to wait until he realized what a doll she was, or she'd have to settle for whoever came after her. Lucy thought that was grim, and Jane made no reply.

"If I could just get him alone for a minute without my brother interrupting, I think I'd just about die," Jane said as she waited in line for popcorn with Lucy and Lilly. "It's been six months since Sandy moved to Florida to live with her grandmother. That's gotta be enough time for him to have moved on, don't you think?"

"Maybe, but you've said it yourself, Janie," Lilly said. "He's a sensitive guy. He needs more time to heal than, say, Steve would."

Jane snorted. "Steve wouldn't know sadness if it came up to him and slapped him in the face. He'd just stomp it till he won."

After grabbing their popcorn, the three young women took their seats with some of their brothers and their friends. The group consisted of Sadie, two of her brothers (her twin, Sodapop, and their younger brother, Ponyboy), Katie, her brother Two-Bit, Carrie Shepard (with neither of her brothers nor her sister), Steve Randle, and Johnny Cade. Lucy took her seat next to Sadie, all the while wondering how she lived in a neighborhood where siblings spent so much time with one another.

Sodapop instantly stood up when he noticed Jane coming toward him. He walked over to her and took his jacket off, handing it to Jane because he thought she looked cold. Jane blushed, and Sadie shot Lucy a look, begging for her not to roll her eyes. Of course, Lucy wanted nothing more than to roll her eyes. She didn't understand how Jane, who was much more perceptive than she gave herself credit, couldn't understand that Soda had been following after her for three months already. Everyday, Sadie tried to tell her, but Jane wouldn't listen. Teenage romance was illogical, Lucy thought, and though she had patience for the abstract, the illogical was a mess she wanted to avoid for as long as she could.

Jane thanked Sodapop for the jacket and took a seat in between Soda and Steve; much to the latter's dismay.

"I was in such a hurry to get going I forgot to bring a jacket myself," Jane said.

"Hey, you ain't the only one," Soda leaned forward and playfully shoved his younger brother, who sat in front of him. "This kid's forgetting his jacket all the time."

"I'll be fine," Ponyboy murmured, but judging by the look on his face, he was already beginning to feel the sting of mid-October at night.

"You can borrow my jacket if you want," Carrie said, already slipping out of her own leather.

"No thanks, Carrie. Wouldn't want you to get cold on account of me."

Carrie faced forward and frowned. It was a secret to no one but Ponyboy himself that Carrie Shepard had been head over heels for him for nearly two years. Her sister, Angela, had felt the same way, but since she ran in a different circle, Ponyboy hadn't known she existed. Since then, Angela hadn't been very warm toward her sister.

Less than a few moments passed before quiet (almost silent) Johnny wandered over to Lucy. She wondered how he'd ever worked up the nerve to come speak to her, and as romantically uninterested as she was, she had to admire his gumption. Lucy was over a year older than Johnny and about two inches taller, which was saying quite a bit, as Lucy didn't stand very high herself. Lucy wasn't noisy (just a quick talker), but she could put up a fuss when she needed to. Johnny was so quiet he tended to blend in with his surroundings. She didn't blame him, but she didn't think they would ever work well together.

"Hey, Lucy," he said, his voice so low she could barely hear him. "I wasn't sure you'd make it."

"Well, here I am," she said, gesturing to the air around her. "I made it."

"That's good. I'm glad."

She looked him in the eye and felt her heart drop with horror. Lilly hadn't been kidding at lunch that day. Johnny's eyes were so bruised it was almost like they weren't there at all.

"You don't look so good, Johnny," Lucy said. "Are you sure you want to stay out tonight?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said. "Besides, I want to. I talked to Dally earlier. He said he'd come by."

Lucy didn't know what to say. In the four years she'd lived in the neighborhood, she hadn't had very many interactions with Dallas Winston—Dally. They'd met, of course, but they tended to stay away from one another. Dally was said to be aggressive, someone Lucy knew to hold at a distance. He'd never been cruel to her because he'd really never been anything to her. She figured she didn't like him, of course. She didn't like much of anyone, especially not anyone who'd been arrested at the age of ten and rolled a drunk guy just to steal a ring he wanted. He'd given it to a girl he'd gone steady with, Sylvia something, but every few months, she'd give it back, never wanting to see him again. Every time, he'd swear he didn't care, but judging by how quickly he always was to take her back, Lucy doubted the stories she'd heard before.

* * *

Some time passed when Lucy wandered off from the group for the bathroom. On her way back, she spotted Sodapop talking to a guy a little taller than he was, with no grease in his hair and a cigarette between his lips—Dally. She paused, strangely compelled to listen to their conversation.

"So, you've just been standing back here for half an hour and none of us saw you?" Soda asked.

Lucy snorted on the inside. It figured. Dally was part of the gang, but only when it was convenient for him.

"I'll come over when I'm ready, man," Dally said. "Besides, ain't no point. You got the cutest girl sitting next to you already. Nothing there for me."

It was then Lucy noticed that the ring was back on his finger. She shuddered. What kind of hood jumps a drunk for a ring? What kind of girl accepts a ring that a hood had to jump a drunk to get?

"Oh, come on, there's plenty of girls over there," Soda said.

"Do you really think I'm gonna pick up on them? Half of 'em are kids, man."

Again, Lucy found herself snorting on the inside. It was, perhaps, the only decent thing she'd heard Dallas Winston say since she'd met him.

"You've got the cutest girl already," Dally said. "Just don't go tellin' Steve I said that."

"Jane's a beauty," Soda said. "I always thought so. And not all the girls are kids, Dal. What about Lucy? Sadie's always talking about how she's lonesome."

_Lonesome_? That was what Sadie said about her when she wasn't around? That she was _lonesome_?

"Lucy?" Dally repeated, a hint of distaste in his voice. "I don't know, man. She's alright, I guess, but… I don't know, she doesn't really do it for me. You dig?"

"Sure. Sure, I dig."

"Go on. I'll figure it out."

Soda said some kind of goodbye and walked back to the gang without noticing that Lucy had been listening almost the whole time. As soon as he was out of range, she came out from behind the bathroom wall and stood in front of Dallas Winston—staring in silence.

He looked her in the eye, cold and unafraid of whatever she had heard. Lucy narrowed her eyes and felt her palms turn into fists. It seemed as though he had known she was there all the while and had said those things simply to rattle her. She quickly realized this was the first time since she had moved to Tulsa that someone other than Sadie had looked her in the eye for this long. Instantly, she became uncomfortable and walked off. She couldn't hear him, but she was sure Dallas Winston was snickering at her behind her back. He had won. Worse, she had let him.

Moments later, Lucy took her familiar seat next to Sadie. Sadie noticed there was something wrong and turned to her friend, worry crossing her face.

"What's the matter, Lucy?" she asked. "You were gone a long time. Any longer and I was going to get worried."

"I'm fine," Lucy said. "Just got a little distracted."

They were quiet for a moment until Lucy spoke again.

"Dally's back. From wherever he was. Jail? Again? I don't know. I'm not very good at keeping up. I wouldn't be surprised if he were in jail, but I also wouldn't be surprised if he'd been running around the country, sleeping in people's garages. That sounds like something he'd do, doesn't it?"

Sadie turned to her, perplexed. She had never heard Lucy use that many words to describe anyone or anything that wasn't a book. But a boy? Sadie was shocked.

"Dally? As in Dallas Winston?"

"Do we know another one?"

"No, of course not. I'm just surprised because I've never heard you say his name since you've lived here."

Lucy frowned. She was already giving away too much, even if it was Sadie.

"Well, I bet you my life I never say his name again," she said. "I'll tell you, I listened to him talk to your brother for not two minutes, and in that time, he managed to say I wasn't pretty enough to come talk to tonight."

"And that bothers you?"

Lucy became flustered. She knew what Sadie was trying to do, but she wouldn't allow it.

"It's the principle of the thing!" Lucy shouted, which earned her a lot of hushing from the crowd. She slumped in her seat and continued to whisper to Sadie.

"I'm telling you, Sadie," she said. "Of all the boys in this neighborhood, I've decided he's the one I like least. What does he know about women? Sylvia seems to two-time him every chance she gets, and from what I just heard, he deserves it. Have I mentioned I really don't like him?"

"You may have said something like that," Sadie said. "What I want to know is… why are you saying it at all?"


	3. Chapter 3

Lucy resolved to be thoroughly unaffected by her encounter with Dallas Winston at the Dingo, and later that week, when Sadie tried to cajole her into talking about it in the lunchroom, she plainly refused.

"I'm only asking you, Lucy," Sadie said. "When Dally finally came around to us, he talked to everybody but you. Am I supposed to believe you weren't at least a little bothered by that?"

"You're supposed to believe I hardly noticed because I didn't," Lucy said. "As a matter of fact, the only reason I'm aware of it now is that you keep reminding me."

"I think it's pretty hard to feel slighted by Dally," Lilly said. "I mean, I was pretty sure the only person he really cared about was Johnny."

Lucy looked at Lilly for a moment. As annoyed as she was, she had to admire the kid's spirit. It would have been easy for Lilly to turn in on herself—to turn quiet, meek, or paranoid like Johnny. That just wasn't Lilly. Lucy never could figure out why. She used to think it was because Lilly spent so much time with Katie and the rest of the Mathews family, but that couldn't be it. Johnny spent nearly all of his time with the Curtises or with Dallas Winston. He was still quiet. He was still afraid. Lucy tried to ask Sadie about it once. All Sadie could manage was, "They go easier on her."

From then on, Lucy made it a point to protect Lilly as much as she could.

"Well, I wasn't the least bit interested in talking to him, so it wouldn't have mattered if he ignored me or not," Lucy said.

She folded her arms across her chest and leaned back in her chair, always at the head of the table. It seemed wrong—she, the interloper, at the head of the table. Maybe that was why they'd always put her there. They wanted to remind her that she stuck out.

"Anyway, Jane, seems Soda's finally over his mourning period," Lucy said. "Is that right?"

Jane beamed from her carton of milk. After gulping it down, she daintily set it back on the table (It was fascinating to watch a greaser girl like Jane Randle correct her behavior like that.). She paused for a moment, as if she were in a movie.

"He wants to go back to the drive-in this weekend," Jane said. "Just us. Steve doesn't know, so don't tell him."

"You'd have to imagine he'll figure it out, Janie," Katie said. "He's gonna ask his best friend about girls, and what's his best friend gonna do? Lie? That ain't Soda."

Her green eyes flickered over to Lucy, absentmindedly staring at the cover of a well-worn copy of Jane Austen's _Persuasion_.

"Seems more like Dallas, if you ask me," Katie finished, trying to force Lucy to look up.

When Lucy finally did look up (The four pairs of eyes fixed to her face pressured her into doing so.), she looked directly at Katie and said, "I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't know why you would connect it to me."

Katie turned to Lilly, and the two of them shared a laugh. Lucy preferred to think she didn't know why they were laughing. Sadie, sensing Lucy's thoughts, leaned over in her seat and whispered, "The very fact that you have to say you don't know means you know, and they know that."

Lucy turned up her nose. She wanted to tell Sadie so much, but she could only say, "I think what you just said breaks the record for 'most times the word _know _was said in a single sentence.'"

Sadie sighed, and Lucy chose not to hear her.

* * *

That night, Dally stumbled into the Curtis house to get patched up after another run-in with Tim Shepard. As he tried to leave, the four siblings ambushed him with the questions he least wanted to answer. Sadie told her brothers they had to interrogate him immediately after his phone call, and they, with varying reluctance, agreed.

"Look, Dal, we're all real sorry Sylvia broke it off again," Sodapop said. "But you ain't like me. You don't need to mope awhile after you get ditched. Why'd you act like that at the drive-in?"

"Yeah, I've seen you talk dirty to all kinds of girls," Ponyboy chimed in. "Our kind, Soc girls, any type of girl. You hardly said a word to any of the girls the other night."

"It doesn't seem like you," Darry said. "But I'm not so sure that's a bad thing."

Sadie shot her eldest brother a look of daggers. He bowed his head and backed right off.

"What am I supposed to say to you all, huh?" Dally said. "Am I supposed to say 'I'm sorry' for not dirty talking to our friends' sisters? I ain't gonna do that if I don't feel like it. And since when do you all care who I bring home at night? Huh? That gives me the creeps, man."

He made his way to the door, but Sadie jumped up and blocked the doorknob. He looked at her, unsure of whether it would be inappropriate to rip a girl's arms off. He'd crossed a number of lines, but he'd never hit a girl before. With Darry sitting in the armchair, eyeing him with the same contempt Sadie had shot him earlier, he decided it wasn't worth it to find out tonight.

"I just want to know what you and Soda were talking about when he found you by the bathrooms," Sadie said.

Dally's eyes wandered over to Sodapop, who looked at Dally like he didn't know what Sadie was talking about. After all, he hadn't told her.

"Soda didn't tell me a thing," Sadie said. "I know what I know because I know it."

Dally paused, thinking back to that pair of dark blue eyes glaring at him from behind the bathrooms at the Dingo. He smirked.

"You know what, Sadie?" he said. "I think that last thing you said breaks the record for the most times somebody's said the word _know _all at once. What do you think?"

Sadie had to bite her lip, this time to keep from smiling.

"There has to be one of us girls you'd be willing to take for a test run," she said. "I mean, except for me, because…"

Sadie didn't finish, and Dally didn't know why. The truth was that Sadie Curtis was considered to be plain. She was Sodapop's twin, but it didn't seem that she had his charisma. Where girls flocked to even catch a glimpse of Soda, boys never seemed to get very close to Sadie. The only boy who gave her any time of day was Johnny Cade, and Sadie was sure that was because he was Ponyboy's best friend, nothing more.

"Well, because my brothers would kill you," she finally said.

"It's true," Darry said. "At least, I would."

"But what about Jane? Jane's very pretty, don't you think?"

Dally shrugged. "Jane's blonde."

"What do you mean, 'Jane's blonde?'" Sodapop asked, bewildered. "How is 'blonde' a problem on a face like that?"

"The problem is she spends all her money trying to stay blonde," Dally said.

Soda frowned. "Well, you can't have her, anyway. I'm taking her out this weekend."

"I think it's real cute you think that'd stop me, man."

Sadie tightened her grip on the doorknob again, sensing that Dally was going to grab for it again. He knew he could pick her up and toss her aside, but something told him he shouldn't. It was more than just Darry's punishing eyes now. It was much more than that.

"What about Lucy?" Sadie asked. "She's pretty, and she's smart."

"Smart?" Dally asked. "What do I care about smart?"

"Well, you're smart, stupid. And if you're gonna stand here and tell me you've never though of Lucy that way, I'm gonna stand here and call you a damn liar."

"I ain't lyin', sweetheart. I never thought about your little friend that way. Now, can you maybe, please, let me go? Thank you."

Sadie looked toward her brothers for advice. Soda was hanging onto every last bit of the drama, Darry had gotten up and started to straighten up the kitchen counter, and Ponyboy looked bored out of his mind.

"Let him go," Ponyboy finally said. "I think that's all you're gonna get out of him tonight."

Reluctantly, Sadie stepped aside and let Dally go free. He left without saying a word, but when she thought about it, Sadie really didn't mind. She closed the door, took a seat on the couch next to Sodapop, and told him the truth.

"They're just too similar," she said.

"Hmm," Soda replied. "I think you're right."

He stood up and held out his hand for his twin to take it. Confused, she agreed.

"Come on," he said. "If I'm gonna go out with Jane this weekend, I wanna look tuff, but not so tuff Steve will suspect I'm up to something before Jane's ready to tell him."

"You're really gonna keep this from him?"

"I'm not really itching to be dead any time soon, here, Sadie, and that'd be a real quick, easy way to make sure I never see our next birthday."

"Well, maybe I want that. I'm tired of sharing a birthday cake with you."

"Yeah, yeah."

She followed him, all the while trying to decide whether she'd tell Lucy how similar she and Dallas really were. No, she would keep it to herself.


	4. Chapter 4

No one had scheduled or been able to quite afford any party, but that Friday night—the night before Sodapop was meant to take Jane to see a movie—somehow, they all ended up at the Curtis house. It wasn't very big inside, and people were hanging out on the front porch and in the backyard, but everybody, including Lucy Bennet and Dallas Winston, wandered in.

There was a moment in the middle of things when Carrie Shepard stood up and started reading from her school copy of _The Canterbury Tales_. She said she thought tonight was a good night to talk about the Wife of Bath, which prompted Two-Bit to ask what happened to her sister, the Wife of Shower. Everybody talked loudly enough during Carrie's recital, except Ponyboy, who hung on her every word, as he'd been interested in Chaucer since they started reading his work in class. Eventually, somebody turned up the radio as loud as it would go, and not even Ponyboy could listen to Carrie go on anymore.

From across the room, Lucy noticed Jane and Sodapop trying to flirt without getting busted by Steve, which Lucy almost had to admire. When Jane got into things, she really committed to them. Of course, Lucy had always wished she'd convert the energy she spent on boys and stealing from boys' wallets to paying attention in class, but she supposed she had to take what she could get from her dear friend.

She later noticed Dallas Winston in the backyard. She walked into the kitchen and noticed him standing on the back steps through the backdoor. As usual, he was having a smoke, but he caught her eye and held it for a long time. It still made Lucy uncomfortable that Dallas Winston could look into her eyes like that—for so long and without blinking. Before, only Sadie had been able to look her in the eye for very long, but even then, it wasn't half as intense as the way this hood looked at her through that dusty screen.

The two only broke eye contact when Sadie wandered into the kitchen to grab a beer from the fridge. She didn't look at Lucy but spoke to her anyway.

"Beer's not for me," she said. "Darry would kill me. It's for Two-Bit."

She glanced down at the bottle in contemplation.

"If I give him this beer, am I contributing to a larger problem? Eh. That's for another day."

She closed the refrigerator door and walked over to Lucy, who hadn't moved since breaking eye contact with Dally. Sadie looked at her friend, then through the screen door, then back to her friend. It took all the strength in the world not to scream.

"You seem far away," Sadie said. "Is something wrong?"

"Something's always wrong," Lucy said. "The war, that's wrong. Should I go on? That feels like a pretty full list by itself."

Sadie looked through the screen door. Dally was there again, trying not to look at either girl but letting his eyes flicker between the two of them. It would have been amusing if it weren't doubly frustrating.

"Jane's talking Soda's ear off about this date," Sadie said. "Makes me worried he's gonna change his mind and not go, if for nothing else because there ain't no way it's gonna live up to her expectations. She thinks it's gonna be Cinderella, doesn't she?"

"She might," Lucy said, suddenly bored.

"I mean, no greaser's gonna turn you into Cinderella," Sadie said. "Well, at least, he ain't gonna turn you into Cinderella at the ball. Don't you think?"

Lucy's eyes were fixed on Dallas Winston again. Every now and then, he'd take a glance at her as well, but never when she was looking. Finally, Sadie guessed that Lucy wanted to talk about it, but she wasn't going to bring it up herself. Lucy didn't play that way.

"Are you _sure _you don't want to go out on one date?" Sadie asked. "It could be fun. Look how happy Jane is."

"Jane's happy for now, but what happens in two years when she notices your brother expects women to cook all the time or when he starts to chew too loudly for her to stand?"

"Shoot, you know Soda knows better than that. He's grown up with me, hasn't he? And he doesn't chew loudly all the time. Just sometimes."

"Well, I think it's a little strange that we're supposed to just put up with a guy's bull for as long as we shall live and all that. Don't you think it's a little strange?"

Sadie shrugged. She _didn't_ think Lucy was right, and she even thought Lucy disagreed with herself. She'd never dare bring it up. Lucy called herself a pacifist (a fun day _that _had been in the lunchroom), but Sadie figured that if Lucy ever did decide to pack a punch, hers would be the mightiest. She carried a lot of energy, and it was quickly turning into rage.

"I think it's about time you recognized that not every boy's gonna be perfect," Sadie said. "And if you've got one, you're gonna have bad days between the two of you. That's just the way it goes. Even my parents had bad days. You remember that."

Lucy didn't say anything. She and Sadie didn't talk about the accident very often. Lucy didn't do crying, and Sadie didn't want to cry, anyway. They were quiet for a few moments that seemed to go on forever, and then Sadie caught Dally trying to catch a glimpse at Lucy through the screen door again. Lucy must have caught it, too, because her cheeks were suddenly redder than Sadie had ever seen them.

"Dally keeps trying to get a look at you through this door," Sadie said. "I don't know if you've noticed."

"I've noticed," Lucy said. "It's bugging me something awful, too, since feeling him looking at me makes it very hard for me to not look at him."

"Well, then, maybe you don't have to not look at him."

Lucy made no reply.

* * *

Dally lit another cigarette and moved far away from the backdoor, afraid to catch another glimpse of Lucy Bennet through the screen. Afraid? That couldn't be right. Dallas Winston had been sad and angry—sometimes, he was so angry, he felt almost happy—but he'd never been afraid. He certainly wasn't afraid of a girl who didn't even clear his collarbone and wrote poems in the back of her notebooks at school. _Poems_. That was what Johnny told him, anyway. Dally didn't mess around with girls who wrote poems. He didn't even mess around with girls who read them.

She was a funny one. No one had ever stared at him for as long as she had that night at the Dingo, and certainly not with so much rage. He found himself almost grinning at the memory of her hands turning into tiny fists, but he caught himself before too long. He never would have told Sadie about it, not even when she cornered him in the doorway, but he'd thought of his standoff with Lucy every night since it happened. No else one looked at him that way. Just Lucy Bennet. What gave her the right?

Ponyboy made his way outside and over to Dally. Dally wasn't going to say much to the kid since he never figured Pony liked him too much, but to his rare surprise, the kid spoke to him first.

"You got a cigarette, Dal?" he asked.

"Yeah, but I ain't gonna give one to you," Dally said.

"Why not?"

"Because I know your big brother's trying to get you to quit, and I ain't up for getting my head kicked in."

"If you don't give me a cigarette, I'll ask you all the same questions Sadie was asking you before. Only I'll ask 'em louder."

Reluctantly, Dally sighed and handed one of his cigarettes over to Ponyboy. As the kid lit up, he said, "I'm still gonna ask you those questions."

"What the hell, kid? Don't you know how a deal works?"

"I do, and I made a deal with Sadie that I'd come talk to you about Lucy."

Dally rolled his eyes. "What kind of world we livin' in now? Huh? A world where a kid comes up to me and asks me about some girl?" He muttered a few more things—incomplete, incoherent swearing.

"Come on, Dally. We never asked you jack about Sylvia."

Dally made no reply, so Ponyboy kept asking questions. It was all Sadie told him he needed to do.

"What makes Lucy so different? She's pretty, isn't she?"

Dally shook his head. Lucy was far from a dog. She was also a far cry away from Sylvia. Where Sylvia had light blonde hair, Lucy's was a deep dark. Sylvia's eyes were bright blue but so small anyone could have just as easily assumed they had no color at all. Lucy had dark blue eyes, big and wide, always noticing something. To put in it terms Pony would understand (but that Dally would never say out loud) Sylvia was like Audrey Hepburn, and Lucy was more like Liz Taylor. He stopped himself and took another drag.

"She ain't bad," he finally said. "But that ain't why I'm not going after her."

"Then why?"

"You think a guy like me could stand to spend one night with a girl like her? One of us would be dead real quick."

Ponyboy was dead quiet for a moment, and Dally was glad. Finally, he shut the kid up.

"Say what you need to say," Ponyboy said. "But I think you like her."

They spoke no more, not of Lucy, not of anything. They did not need to. Both knew exactly as much as they needed.

* * *

Before long, Dally found his way back into the house. He passed Soda sitting on the couch between Jane and Lucy, and, unaware that Ponyboy had ambushed him with questions about the latter just moments prior, Soda grabbed Lucy's hand and pushed her right into Dally.

"Hey, Dal, look who I found!" Soda said. "Lucy was just talking about you."

"No, I wasn't," Lucy said, staring Dallas Winston in the eye so that he knew she wasn't speaking of him. She'd never speak of him unless to remind the others how vile he was.

"Alright, she wasn't. But I think she wanted to! She's been listening to me and Jane talk about our date tomorrow night at the Dingo. Maybe the two of you could tag along?"

Lucy and Dally made strong eye contact again. This time, however, there was something other than contempt between them. This time, they shared what was almost a laugh, as to convey exhaustion with the gang's insistence on throwing them together—exhaustion that only the other would fully understand. Then, in an unprecedented move, Dally made his reply.

"You know what, Soda? Maybe you're right," he said. "You wanna go over to the Dingo tomorrow?"

Lucy bit her lip to keep from smiling. Smiling? Why would she smile at a hood like that? She'd never been interested in any of the boys in the neighborhood, and now, when she was applying to colleges, was not the time for her friends to even think she was interested.

"Well, I'd love to," Lucy said, damning her politeness behind her tongue. "But I'm not sure I can. I have to finish a novel for my English class this weekend, and I'm already behind just being here."

"Oh, who cares about that?" Jane asked. "It's your senior year."

"Your only one, too," Soda said. "You got lucky."

"You can goof off a little and still pass that class with flying colors, or whatever they call it!" Jane said.

Lucy and Dally stared at each other for a few moments longer. In those moments, Lucy was almost tempted to change her mind, tell Dallas Winston she would be happy to go with him tomorrow night, and that he could meet her at the Dingo because she didn't want her father to know she'd be going out with a boy, just to see how Dally would respond. She stopped herself, gulped hard, and stood her ground.

"I'm just not one to goof off on my schoolwork," Lucy said. "Especially when it's English. You know?"

"I know," Dally said. "I heard you write poems."

Lucy didn't know what to say, so she said nothing.

"Well, another time, then," Jane said.

"Sure," Lucy said as she walked back to the kitchen. "Another time."

Neither Jane nor Sodapop realized it since they were too busy flirting with themselves, but Dally's eyes followed Lucy on her way out. He dismissed himself and headed for the front door, thinking that if he left right away, Lucy Bennet would forget he'd ever been there. On his way out, he ran into what, months ago, would have been a welcome surprise: Cherry Valance standing in front of her little old Stingray. He smirked and walked over to her.

"Your folks know you're over here?" he asked.

Cherry shook her head.

"I saw you in there a minute ago," Cherry said. She'd learned to hate him a little less each time she saw him, and it was getting to the point where what she said to Ponyboy—about falling in love with Dallas Winston—was coming true.

"You spyin' on me, Red?"

"I'm noticing you talking to that girl. You know, they say she likes to get into shouting matches at school. She's in history class with my friend Marcia, and Marcia said she tore into this boy when he didn't agree with her."

"Mmm-hmm."

"You must have wanted to get away from that."

It happened so quickly that he didn't even know what he was saying, or for that matter, who he was talking to.

"I don't know. More she keeps looking me in the eye like that, more I like running into her."

Cherry looked down at the pavement, but Dally didn't notice.

"She's got nice eyes," he added.

Cherry let out a high laugh.

"Lucy Bennet's got nice eyes?" she asked. "The same Lucy Bennet who snapped at Randy in English class last year when he said that wife who gets killed in _Of Mice and Men _deserved what she got?"

"I don't know what any of that means, but yeah. She's got nice eyes. She keeps looking at me, too. I think I might like it a little bit."

Cherry laughed again, this time higher and louder. She had lost control, and now, thinking she was falling in love with Dallas Winston became less of a guess and more of a certainty. Lucy Bennet didn't have nice eyes. She couldn't.

"Lucy Bennet's got nice eyes," Cherry repeated. "I never would have guessed."


	5. Chapter 5

On Saturday, Lucy had finished reading _Persuasion _hours before she assumed she would. It always happened when she was reading Austen, though she'd never admit it aloud. It was a joy to stand beside Anne Elliot as she found Captain Wentworth's love letter. Of course, it was very clear that Wentworth's letter had been written by a woman in reality, as it was difficult to imagine any man in the neighborhood writing anything like, "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope." Lucy closed the book and before she knew it, she'd arrived at Sadie's door. When Sadie came to the porch, Lucy told her she'd been thinking about it, and maybe she really ought to go to the Dingo tonight. Sadie asked her if she thought that was a little rude, since she'd denied Dallas Winston's invitation the night before. Lucy was sure he wouldn't be there and that no one would even see her there.

"Hate to break it to you, Lucy, but if you turned Dally down, he'll show up with another girl just to get a rise out of you," Sadie said. "I thought you knew that."

"Do I look like I care what Dallas Winston thinks of me? Do I look like he care if he takes out somebody else?"

Sadie made no reply, and quicker than either of them knew it, they were at the Dingo again. They caught a glimpse of Jane and Soda, happier than either had been in quite some time, but they took their seats far away from the date. Sadie loved her brother dearly, but she couldn't stand the idea of him on a date. Of course, just minutes after Lucy and Sadie found their seats, Jane and Sodapop found them.

"Well, isn't this funny?" Soda said as he and Jane took their new seats. "I'm on a date as the same time as my little sister."

"I'm five minutes older than you. You know that."

"Yeah, but sure is fun to make you mad," Soda laughed. He leaned over to talk to Lucy, who sat on the far end of the row, looking out into the distance, hoping no one would speak to her for the rest of the night.

"Hey, Lucy!" Soda said. "I thought you couldn't make it tonight. I thought you had to finish your homework."

"Got done early," Lucy said. "And you know if I'm not doing my homework, I've gotta be with Sadie. Those are the rules."

"Well, Lucy, it's always fun to see you out and about," Jane said. She hadn't wiped the smile from her face in over a week. Suddenly, her face fell, and she turned white. Nothing was worse than the two figures inching toward them from the mist of the film projector. Lucy promptly asked Jane what was the matter, and Jane let out a nervous giggle.

"Lucy, do you wish you were still at home with one of your books?" Jane asked.

"I don't know," Lucy said. "I mean, you know how much I love my books. But you also know how much I love my Sadie. I'd rather hang out with her than reread another far-fetched romance."

In that moment, Soda caught on, too. In that moment, there was only tension.

"Uh, Lucy?" he asked. "Remember when you told Dally you wouldn't be here tonight?"

"Why is everybody making a big fuss about that? He asked me because he wanted you all off his back about me. It's not like he gives a hang if I'm here or at home, and I don't give a hang where he is, either."

"Uh-huh," Jane said. "And, uh, would you feel the same way if he and Cherry Valance were headed toward us?"

Lucy's face turned hot as Dallas Winston and Cherry Valance, the girl who said that girls should always be required to take home ec but didn't even mean it (Lucy caught Cherry reading Betty Friedan under a celebrity magazine in homeroom one morning but vowed never to expose her for it.), sat down behind them. Though she could feel him smirking at her, she didn't dare turn around. He was so smug.

"You okay, Cherry?" Sodapop asked. "I never seen you stand more than a mile away from this hood."

"She likes to change her mind about me," Dally said. He kicked Lucy's chair, though it wasn't clear whether or not he had done it on purpose.

"I've never changed my mind about you," Cherry said. "I came here with Marcia, but she got into an argument with Randy in the parking lot. I was on my way to the bathroom when he found me."

"But you didn't run screaming. Some people might call that an improvement."

"I only didn't run screaming because I knew Soda was up here, and I'd rather wait with him. You can leave me alone now."

Lucy felt a kick on the back of her chair again. This one was purposeful.

"No thanks, Red," he said. "I think I'm gonna stay."

Nervously—no, not nervously, angrily, she was angry—Lucy curled her tongue behind her teeth and prayed no one could even hear her breathing. She grabbed the underside of the plastic orange chair and squeezed it with both of her hands. She would not turn around. She would not speak to him.

"Sky's pretty dark," Dally said, not in Lucy's ear but only for Lucy to hear. "Good time to watch a movie, but not such a good time to… I don't know, it's not such a good time to read a book, is it?"

"What are you going on about?" Cherry asked. She wasn't certain what Dally meant, but judging by the impish look on his face, it wasn't too hard for her to guess.

"Let me ask you something, Red. What's the worst excuse you ever gave to a guy who wanted to take you out?"

"I told you to go to hell."

"Ah, come on. You know that's not what I mean."

Right then, Sadie reached out and grabbed Lucy's hand. She squeezed it as if to remind Lucy that she didn't have to turn around if she didn't want to. Perhaps Lucy should turn around, but not if it would only bring her pain. That was what it was—pain. Sadie knew, but she knew Lucy would never own up to it herself. Dally sat up a bit in his chair and tapped Sadie on the shoulder. She bristled, but only slightly, and she did not turn around.

"How about you, Sadie?" he asked. "You ever… you ever turn a guy away because you want to stay in and read a book?"

Sadie pursed her lips and squeezed Lucy's hand tighter. If Lucy squeezed any harder, she would pop one of Sadie's veins for sure. Exasperated, Dally laughed and sat back in his chair again.

"Funny thing is, that's not the worst excuse I ever heard," he said. "Red here once told me she couldn't go out with me because she had to stay in and wash her hair."

"You backed off, didn't you?" Cherry asked.

Soda turned around now, his dark eyes pleading with his friend to stop.

"Come on, Dally," he said. "Don't take it so personal."

"Besides," Jane added, "she's sitting right here."

Dally smirked at Jane. That was the idea. Jane slumped her shoulders forward and tried to cover her face. She wasn't so quick on the uptake. She knew that, but she couldn't seem to figure out how to get faster.

"You know what?" Dally asked. "I think I get that a little more. Staying in to wash your hair. At least that means you're trying to look good. What's a book gonna do for you, huh? Make sure the next guy knows to stay the hell away?"

Lucy flew around in her chair to glare at Dallas Winston, just as she had a week before. This time, he wasn't smirking. He was smiling—warmly smiling, as though he was happy to see her so angry. It was not cruel, but it was so out of place that it couldn't be processed right away. Lucy's rage poured out of her pink cheeks, and this time, she was ready to speak.

"I don't give a damn whether or not I look good!" she snapped. "And for the record, I'm interested in men who are interested in books, so if you're telling me they repulse you, I suppose I'll have to start carrying one wherever I go."

Dally hadn't stopped smiling. Lucy hadn't realized the difference between his smirk and his smile. She was too focused on herself.

"So you can read to me?" he asked.

"I was thinking I'd throw them at you."

She tapped Sadie on the shoulder. Sadie flinched. It was terrible to be caught in the middle of one of Lucy's arguments, especially (as the gang was quickly learning) one of her arguments with Dally.

"Sadie, you seen my copy of _A Tale of Two Cities_? I think I've gotta go out for some target practice."

Dally laughed once, and then no one said a word for a very long time.

* * *

When Lucy and Sadie had gone to buy themselves a couple of Cokes, Cherry spoke to Marcia, who had finally escaped Randy, about what had happened between Lucy Bennet and Dallas Winston. It didn't matter that Dally was sitting right there, as he was paying more attention to his cigarette than to anyone or much of anything else.

"She wanted to throw a book at his head!" Cherry said.

"At his head?" Marcia asked. "Wow, and I thought her shouting match with Randy was the worst of it. And how come she came out tonight if she said she wouldn't?"

"Well, I suppose it's none of my business, but I don't think it's a very good idea to say one thing and do another. And if only she'd let someone else choose her lipstick for her."

Soda turned around and shook his head.

"I don't think that's very nice to say," he said. "I think Lucy looks real nice tonight. I think she looks real pretty."

Jane grimaced a bit, so he threw his arm around her and held her a little closer.

"But only as Sadie's best friend," he added, and Jane smiled. It was a scene out of a romance novel, and if she had been there, Lucy would have feigned vomit sounds over the scene.

He turned around again, this time with narrower eyes.

"I think you ought to be nicer to Lucy," he said. "If you say you're friends with me and my family, you gotta get okay with Lucy."

Cherry drew up her mouth. She anchored her body closer to Dally, as though to ask him to add to the conversation on Lucy Bennet, but this conversation did not dignify his response. Cherry turned to Marcia, tipping her head toward an uninterested Dally.

"_He _thinks she has nice eyes," Cherry said. "He told me so last night."

"Last night?" Marcia asked. "Where would you have been to see Dallas Winston last night?"

Cherry blanched and made no reply. No one on the West side, not even Marcia, knew how many frequent visits she paid to the Curtis house, which meant paying frequent visits to Dallas Winston by coincidence. Marcia saw the look on Cherry's face and decided it was best to leave the matter alone.

"Well, you've got nice eyes, too," Marcia said. "Nicer eyes, if you ask me. You know, I read in biology the other day that blue eyes are a mutation?"

"You're a mutation."

Marcia sat up straighter, looked past Cherry, and stared straight at Dallas Winston, who hadn't made a peep since she sat down moments earlier.

"What did you say?" she asked.

"I said, 'You're a mutation,'" Dally repeated.

Marcia ignored Dally and turned back to Cherry. "Well, there's no way he still thinks she has nice eyes. Not after the way you said she glared at him."

Cherry nodded, but from the left of her, the voice came back.

"Not true. Her eyes just got nicer."

Neither Cherry nor Marcia knew what to make of Dally's response—only Dallas Winston found the toughest and meanest girls attractive, which they couldn't understand—so they carried on their conversation.

"Whatever you do, don't take it out on Sadie or Jane here," Marcia said. "They're sweet girls. They haven't done anything."

Without turning around, Jane loudly said, "I haven't done anything yet, but I will if you keep talking about Lucy that way."

"Dammit," Dally spoke again. "Why does everything gotta be about Lucy Bennet all of a sudden? What did she do? Huh? She's just a girl. Worst thing she ever did was drink out of Pony's Pepsi 'cause she thought it was hers."

"What about when she turned you down?" Cherry asked.

Dally shook his head. "I wasn't even making a real offer."

He stood up and walked over to Soda in front of him. As he sat down, he said, "You know, man, me and you."

"I ain't looking for a fight, Dal," Soda said. "Not with you."

"Nah, that's not what I mean. I gotta go, but I'll see you around, man."

"I don't know what you're getting at."

"Doesn't matter. See you around."

As he stood back up again, he looked right at Jane. He smirked a little, and a nervous chill ran up Jane's spine. Before she could ask him what he was thinking, he was off. She turned to Soda again.

"What do you think that was about?"

"I don't know. Guess we'll find out."

* * *

Dally had a room at his old man's place, but he hadn't used it hardly at all since he was ten. That was when his mother had died, and his father, stuck with a kid he never wanted, was too lazy to get rid of his son. Dally hadn't had a proper conversation with his old man in almost three years, and it wasn't much of a conversation. He'd thrown a condom at his fifteen-year-old son and told him not to end up like him. It was like he had forgotten whom he was talking to, except Dally knew he hadn't.

He wasn't in any trouble that night (no more trouble than usual, that was), but he decided to wander over to the Curtis house and ask Darry if he could spend another night on the couch. Darry agreed, but only if Dally stayed long enough in the morning to help him clean up the kitchen. That was fair. Dally had spent so many nights in that house he was surprised Darry didn't ask him to help out more often. He didn't like to clean—he didn't like much of anything—but you couldn't ask the same guy for a bunch of favors in a row and expect him not to want anything in return. That wasn't the way.

Some time passed, and as he was beginning to fall asleep on the couch, the door swung open. Instinctively, he jolted and saw Sadie and Lucy Bennet make their way inside.

"Call your mom if you want," Sadie said. "I'm sure Darry won't mind if you spend the night over here."

"Thanks, Sadie," Lucy said. "After tonight, I don't want to go into my room and be alone all night."

Dally smirked. They were almost talking about him, but they hadn't yet noticed he was there. He laughed out loud, and sure enough, Lucy was startled.

"Well, don't let me scare you," he said.

Sadie muttered something about needing to ask Darry a question and excused herself indelicately. Lucy moved so that she stood directly above Dally, folding her arms across her bust.

"Don't tell me you're spending the night here, too," Lucy said.

"Just so happens I am. But don't worry—you won't run into me. Unless you want to."

He patted the couch cushion beside him. Lucy laughed, but only halfway in disgust.

"You have no sense of yourself, do you?" she asked.

"I know myself. You know something? I bet I know myself better than you know yourself. You know it, too."

"All I _know _is that you might have just beaten Sadie's record for the most uses of the word _know _all in a row."

Dally tried not to look surprised. He remembered saying the same thing to Sadie days earlier, and Sadie had looked at him so oddly then. Was this why? Had Lucy Bennet said exactly the same thing? He didn't care. It was strange that two people far apart from one another would have said exactly the same thing, but it meant nothing. Meant nothing? Did he feel the need to clarify that it might have, to someone, meant something? Of course it didn't. It never had. It never would.

"Can I ask you something, Bennet?" Dally said.

_Bennet_? He'd never addressed her as anything before, much less _Bennet_. There was a certain sum of affection in calling a woman by her surname. It was very modern, but it carried a strange specialness that the use of one's first name just couldn't convey.

"That _was _a question, but go on," Lucy said.

"How come… how come you hate me so much?"

Lucy laughed, half exasperated and half thrilled to finally answer him. She'd been thinking about the answer every night since they stared one another down at the Dingo, and now, he was requesting it.

"I don't hate you because I think you're a hood," Lucy said. "And I don't hate you because you think I'm plain. I don't hate you at all."

"So, this… this… this attitude you put out when you're around me… what is it, then?"

"I don't trust you."

He raised his eyebrows. There it was. He'd known, of course, but it was so much fun to hear her say it for herself.

"You don't trust me," he said.

"That's right. I don't trust anyone who makes a hobby out of destroying everything he touches and offending everyone who meets him."

"Uh-huh. I see. Well, Bennet, I hate to burst this pretty little bubble you live in, but you're pretty messed up, too."

"Oh, am I? How exactly am I 'messed up?'"

"You're a know-it-all. You think you know everyone just by looking at 'em once."

Lucy frowned. She'd heard her father say something similar before, when they'd had a professor of political science—one who'd voted for Nixon—over for dinner shortly after the 1960 election, but she'd forgotten about it until that night, faced with Dallas Winston. _Dallas Winston_ had said the same thing her father, the professor whose criticisms of Jane Austen were renowned in his field, had told her years earlier. She dug her heels into the floor.

"You know something?" she said. "I think I'd like it better if we left each other alone until whenever it is we'll see each other next."

Dally grinned. He hadn't realized just how much Lucy was looking forward to that.

"Well, if you change your mind, this couch is much bigger than it looks," he said. "Look at that. You could sit all the way at the other end, read your book, and you wouldn't even know I was here."

"Why do you make such a big deal about the fact that I read books? Have you never read a book?"

"That's none of your business."

He reached over onto the coffee table and picked up a deck of playing cards. He showed them off, and Lucy bit her lip to keep from… from what, she no longer could predict.

"You like books better than poker," he said. "And that tells me everything I need to know about you. Just right there."

"I said nothing about poker."

"You don't have to. It's in your eyes. You read all the time, and you don't got time for nothing else."

Lucy straightened her spine. It was great to feel taller than Dallas Winston.

"If I did nothing but read, I'd be much smarter than I am," she said. "And if you have to know, I do plenty else."

"You do? Well, then, can I know about it? Or is it one of those secrets? You know, one of those secrets I wouldn't know unless I got to be all alone with you at night."

"I don't have any secrets like that, so you can stop your hoping. What about you? What do you so secretly?"

"Look in your eyes tells me you already know."

"Stop looking at my eyes."

"Is there somewhere else you'd rather me look?"

Lucy stopped and bit her lip again. She was going to draw blood if she wasn't careful. Dally contained his smirk and nodded. She was right where he needed her to be.

"I got plenty of secrets," he said. "I was planning on doing one of 'em tonight. You wanna watch?"

"If it looks anything like I think it might, I don't want to watch at all."

Dally laughed. He pulled a piece of lined paper and a pen from his jacket, which Lucy stared at in confusion. If he was going to tell her that he wrote poems, after he gave her a hard time for writing them, she would surely smack him across his pale face.

"I'm writing a letter to my sister," Dally said. "I do that sometimes."

"Your sister?" Lucy asked. "But I thought you didn't…"

"I don't. The old man lives not three blocks from here, and I don't. He'd kill her if she ever saw me, and he don't check the mail. So I send her letters."

It was then Lucy noticed she was sitting beside Dallas Winston on the Curtis family couch. All the years she'd lived in Tulsa and all the years she had been Sadie's best friend, and she'd never sat this close to Dallas Winston before. Of course, at the same time she noticed, so did Dally. He stood up as though she were a hot poker and stood far away from her.

"You ain't allowed to tell anybody about this. Ya hear?" he asked. Lucy knew he wasn't just talking about the letters he wrote to his sister.

"I'm already ahead of you."

"Yeah, you wish you were ahead of me."

In that moment, Sadie appeared in the living room again. She told Lucy she had taken the liberty of calling her parents, and they had given Lucy permission to stay at the Curtis house. Lucy thanked Sadie for phoning her home on her behalf, stood up and followed Sadie to her room, and not once looked back at Dally.

Dally lay back down on the couch, smiling without the hint of a smirk. Lucy Bennet was as mean and angry as he was, but was she ever pretty.


	6. Chapter 6

**So, it occurs to me that this chapter may need ... footnotes. There's a part in which Lucy and Sadie discuss a play called _The Way of the World. _It's by a playwright called William Congreve, and it's from the year 1700. The reference is admittedly obscure (and explained away by Lucy's love of arcane literature), but its characters are somewhat relevant to the rest of my little fic here. **

**The other note is about Two-Bit. He goes through _a lot _in this fic, and he doesn't always make the right choices. Don't despair. I promise, in my impending bibliography, I do him the justice he rightly deserves. :)**

* * *

On Monday, Lucy sat with the same girls at the same lunch table again. Lilly, like always, seemed to have a trick up her sleeve. When Katie asked her about it, Lilly said nothing except for a hint that someone else would be joining them within the hour.

"You don't need to pretend it's a secret, Lilly," Lucy said. "We all know you're talking about Johnny."

"I didn't say that!" Lilly said—giggled, really, was more accurate.

"You didn't have to. What's he coming here to do?"

Lilly erupted into an unnecessary fit of giggles. Lucy tightened her grip around her plastic fork, trying to keep her cool because she loved Lilly and wanted her to have her happiness. But why did she have to try to set up her brother with Lucy? Didn't Lilly understand? Lucy flew alone. As soon as they called her name and gave her that diploma on graduation day, she was out of there and onto wherever they'd take her next. That was probably the University of Tulsa, what with her father's discount, but she liked to pretend they could afford somewhere where she could really learn something—some place like Sarah Lawrence or Bryn Mawr. Her father had told her that no matter the grades she made in high school, they couldn't make a liberal arts college. The only way that would happen was if his parents decided they would speak to him again, and when Lucy asked if that was possible, he muttered something about when the cows came home. Lucy hoped for _deus ex machina, _but it only happened in her Greek plays. In reality, she was stuck in a Tulsa high school, trying not to let on that she'd been thinking about her conversation with Dallas Winston since Saturday night. She wouldn't let on. She had an image to protect, and Dallas Winston would ruin it, just like he ruined everything he touched.

"You could give him a chance, Lucy," Carrie Shepard said. "I mean, he's a nice guy, he's Lilly's brother, and he likes you."

"And what?" Lucy asked. "All of a sudden that makes him Paul Newman?"

"Come on," Sadie said. "You know Johnny's not a bad guy. You like him!"

"I like him, but I don't want to date him. Am I the only one around here who understands that there's a difference?"

The silence implied that she was.

Of course, Johnny was a stand-up guy. He was kind and patient and handsome enough. His height didn't even really bother Lucy. But he didn't offer her the kind of conversation she knew she wanted from a man. She wanted wit and dashing and… _gallant_. Now, that was a word. Johnny was a nice guy, and she liked him. But she couldn't imagine going out with him on Friday nights.

"You're on your own, kid," Sadie said. "I wish I could help you, but this is the one place where I think you're wrong."

"Oh, come on," Lucy said. "You don't want to go out with Johnny, either. Do you?"

Sadie wouldn't have even replied if Johnny hadn't nervously walked over to the girls' table that very moment. He awkwardly hovered over Lucy, who didn't have the slightest idea what to do. She looked to Lilly and Jane, who were the most excited and the wisest about this sort of thing, respectively. Both girls gave her a look as if to say she should say hello and offer him a seat, so she did.

"I tried to say something to do you when you were leaving your math class today, but you didn't hear me," Johnny said.

Lucy had never been so aware of how small and quiet he was.

"Oh, you know," she said. "The hallways get so loud in between classes."

"You're right. Too loud sometimes."

A long pause befell them. Johnny looked down the long table and at his sister, who waved her hand for him to go on. He cleared his throat and made his voice just a little bit louder and clearer so that Lucy would be sure to hear and understand him this time. He hadn't planned on asking her out before that morning—just planned on looking at her from afar, especially since Dally had been talking about her all the time since last week—but Lilly told him he ought to go for it. He was in the business of making sure Lilly got what she wanted.

"Hey, Lucy?" he asked.

"Yeah, Johnny?"

"Do you… see… Buck Merril's having this party tonight, and Dally asked me if I wanted to go. I wasn't figurin' I'd go, but then I saw you over here. And I was wondering… if I'm gonna go, do you wanna go with me?"

All the girls at the lunch table stopped chewing in anticipation of Lucy's reply. She couldn't believe what a momentous decision this date apparently was, so she had to give them an answer they would like. Maybe then they would shut up and move on with their lives.

"How are you gonna fit in at Buck Merril's place?" Lucy asked. She was laughing. They were in good spirits even if Lucy didn't want to date Johnny. "How am _I _gonna fit in at Buck Merril's place?"

"I don't know… figure I could blend in," Johnny said. "That's what Dally says he does. He don't really fit in with the guys there, either, so he figures he could bring somebody else along. So… do you wanna go?"

For a long moment, Lucy said nothing. She looked to her friends for some sort of guidance, but she got what was typical. Sadie looked at her with pity, Katie and Lilly looked at her with childish glee, Carrie glared at her as though it would be morally reprehensible if she turned him down, but Jane smiled as if to say, "He _did _say Dally would be there." Lucy's heart jumped. What did she care if Dally would be there? After Saturday night, she was beginning to think she truly hated him.

Lucy turned to Johnny with a small smile and accepted his offer, though she was immediately met with a wave of regret. It wasn't that she'd have to spend time with Johnny. She liked him. He was a good friend. It was that she would have to go to Buck's, listen to the music she hated most, and run into Dallas Winston. Why did she keep running into Dallas Winston? Before that night they stared each other down at the Dingo, she rarely saw him. She wasn't even sure he knew her name before then. But since then, he showed up everywhere she went. She was growing tired of it. This would perfectly annoy him. He kept showing up in all the places Lucy went, but now, she would show up in the place _he _went. She almost smirked at the thought of his face when he saw her walk in with Johnny.

Johnny muttered something about meeting Lucy… somewhere… and Lilly offered the Curtis house before Sadie could even give her permission. It was all arranged before Lucy could even open her mouth. She and Johnny would meet at the Curtis house at 7:30, and they would start to walk over to Buck's so they could get there by 8:00. She dreaded the thought of walking half an hour to a party she didn't want to go to in relative silence with Johnny, but if it would annoy Dallas Winston, she would be willing to take the risk. After all he'd been putting her through, he deserved to be annoyed.

"I'll see you tonight," Johnny said as he stood up from the table. "Right?"

"Of course," Lucy said. And she did mean it. Lucy wasn't one to back down on her promises. As soon as Johnny was out of range, Lilly beamed, and it reminded Lucy of how much she loved her… how much she would do to keep her out of harm's way. Katie Mathews might have been Lilly's best friend, but Lucy liked to think of herself as Lilly's protector.

"Lucy!" Lilly said. "How are you going to do your hair?"

Lucy pointed to her head. "Like this?"

Lilly rolled her eyes as though Lucy was the childish one. As Lilly prattled on about styles and lengths and other things, Lucy thought more of the expression she'd wear when she saw Dallas Winston that night. Would she smirk? Would she glare? Would she act surprised, as if she didn't know he'd be at a party thrown by his own rodeo partner? She would figure it out. As soon as she saw his face, she would figure it out.

* * *

When school let out that day, the girls stood on the lawn and regrouped. Lilly was still the most excited about Lucy's date with Johnny, and Lucy was thinking about what she'd say to Dallas Winston if—_when_—he came up to her at the party. She was torn between a joke and a condescending comment. Of course, she could combine them. She would combine them. Before she knew it, Lilly interrupted her own squealing to do more squealing.

"Oh goodness!" she said.

"What?" Katie asked.

"Your brother's coming over here!"

The girls all turned around as Two-Bit came walking toward them. Five of them smiled warmly, but Lilly clasped her hands together and looked like she might faint. Lucy tipped her head toward Lilly and looked at her puzzlingly. Since when did Lilly have a crush on Two-Bit?

"Hey, ladies," he said. "Oh, sorry. Hey, ladies… and Katie."

"That's not a joke," Katie said. "I was listening to some girls in my history class talk today, and they said that guys get more than girls do no matter what. So maybe I shouldn't be a lady."

"Nah, you're a lady. You've got too many skirts to be a guy."

He laughed as though he'd just killed it on _Ed Sullivan_, but Lilly was the only girl who laughed along with him. Two-Bit's sense of humor was unpredictable. Sometimes, it was clever—wordplay and observations about the gang or the Socs or whatever was right in front of them at the moment. Sometimes it was… well, it was _that_.

"What're you doing here, Two-Bit?" Lilly asked. "It's Monday. You never come to school on Mondays."

"Or Fridays," Katie said.

It explained why he was coming up on nineteen and hadn't yet passed the eleventh grade.

"I can't help that I need a day to get started and a day to recover," Two-Bit said. "Anyway, I didn't come to school today. Just got here now to talk to…"

He spun around and pointed at Lucy. Lilly deflated, and Lucy's face surprisingly flushed.

"You." Two-Bit said.

"What do you want?" Lucy asked. Her rudeness cast a pall over the group. She could feel it around her neck. She wasn't angry with Two-Bit. She hadn't cared for his joke about the skirts, but he told bad jokes all the time. It didn't mean she didn't like him or that she felt compelled to snap at him. No, it wasn't about Two-Bit at all. Somewhere inside of her, she could sense what he was going to say next.

"Not me, baby doll. I ran into Dally at the DX today. He said to tell you he's looking forward to seeing you at Buck's tonight."

Jane squeaked under her breath, which Lucy ignored. She tucked her hair behind her ears and asked, more quietly than usual, "How did he know I was going to Buck's tonight? Did Johnny tell him he was going to ask me to go with him?"

"Guess so. I couldn't believe it when he told me, so I had to run up here and ask you if it was true. I figured you wouldn't be caught dead hangin' around some old cowboy like Buck Merril. Thought you'd be somewhere else all night, like the library or something. You're classy like that."

Lucy found herself giggling, too. Lilly shot her a look of despair, but Lucy ignored it. She even ignored the voice in the back of her head that was telling her to stop looking at Two-Bit Mathews like he was anyone other than _Two-Bit Mathews_. What mattered was that he wasn't Dallas Winston. Dallas Winston wouldn't have called her classy. He wouldn't have even known what that meant.

"Well, Johnny wanted me to go," she said. That was a good excuse. Everybody in the gang did everything for Johnny. Once, when she was at Sadie's house, she'd even heard Ponyboy call him the gang's pet. If Two-Bit thought she was just going to the party to ease Johnny's mind, then he surely wouldn't believe that Lucy was actually going on a date with him. She needed him to know that she had no real interest in Johnny.

"Are you going?" she asked. Her bluntness took her by surprise.

Two-Bit nodded. "Figured I'd drop by. I ain't invited, but Buck'll be so drunk he won't know who's comin' or goin'."

Lucy nodded and felt that smile she hated creep across her face.

"So, I'll see you then?"

"I'm lookin' forward to it."

Once Two-Bit had turned around to mess with some other girls (which Lucy conveniently didn't see), Sadie grabbed her shoulder and forced her to look her in the eye.

"What the _hell_?" she asked.

"What?"

"You don't get to have a crush on Two-Bit. That's not the way this works."

"I never said I did. And besides, what's the way what works?"

"The world! It's not the way of the world. You know, like that play you and Ponyboy read over the summer. There's the way of the world, and it doesn't include marrying somebody so you can pay to have an affair!"

"I think you're trying too hard to prove you've read Congreve. You've got it all wrong. Two-Bit's no Mirabell."

"You're right about that. Two-Bit's no Mirabell. Mirabell knows when it's time to quit playin' around. Either way. You're not allowed to have a crush on Two-Bit. He's a nice guy, but when it comes to girls, he's even more of a flake than Dally."

"That seems hard to believe."

"If you think so, then you really don't know Two-Bit. Or Dally."

Lucy tried to ask Sadie what she was talking about, but Sadie said that Darry told her it was best not to talk about it in front of people. But Lucy wasn't people. She was Sadie's best friend. It didn't matter. When Darry told Sadie not to do something, she always listened. Lucy decided to put it out of her mind. It had past, and Lucy figured most people—not all people, and certainly not Dallas Winston—had to be more than their past mistakes. When she told Sadie that was how she was going to look at it, whatever it was, Sadie laughed out loud and said, "Shoot, Lucy. Sometimes, I think I know you better than you know yourself."

* * *

Just as Lucy had feared, Johnny was barely able to talk to her on the walk over to Buck's. It was just as well. She was still thinking of what she'd say to Dallas Winston when she saw him there. Maybe she'd ream him a new one for telling Two-Bit to go taunt her like that. That was another thing to think about. What would she say when she saw Two-Bit? They were more similar than Lucy had realized. In the past few hours, she realized that they were both witty—at least, Two-Bit could be witty when he wanted to be. And he was kind to Katie, even if he did like to tease her in front of her friends. Was it too much to ask for a man who was kind? Lucy thought of herself as kind and generous, and she thought of Dallas Winston as exactly the opposite. Her legs grew heavier with each step. She dreaded to see him there.

"Do you?" Johnny asked.

Lucy woke up from her stupor. Suddenly, they were standing in front of Buck's place. She felt her palms tighten into fists. Who'd play Hank Williams at a party? Worse, who'd play "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" at a party? She looked at Johnny, feeling guilty she'd been ignoring him all this time.

"What?" she asked.

"I asked if you hate this music as much as I do," Johnny said. "Do you?"

"Oh. Yeah."

He gave her a small grin. Once they were inside, she looked at him and couldn't help but feel sorry for him. It was easy to feel sorry for Johnny, and that made her angry. She couldn't imagine being the kind of person people always felt sorry for. She felt sorry for him because he had to live where he lived, and he had to be on a date with someone who didn't want to be there with him. He was a sweet guy, but she couldn't talk to him. She could talk to him about small stuff when she was with Sadie, and he was with Ponyboy, but she couldn't talk to him on a half-hour walk to a place she really didn't want to be. To make it work with somebody, you have to be able to talk to them on a half-hour walk somewhere, especially if it's to somewhere you don't want to be. She didn't see that happening with Johnny; no matter how much time she spent pretending to make it work for Lilly's sake.

Her eyes scanned the room for either Dally or Two-Bit. Maybe both. After a few minutes of awkwardly trying to chat with Johnny about more than just how cold it was getting outside, she finally made eye contact with Two-Bit from across the room. He smiled at her, and she did that same smile right back. Normally, it would bother her to want to smile like that, but that night, smiling at Two-Bit… it felt like the right thing to do. That was a guy she could talk to on a half-hour walk. They'd make jokes about the people they passed and how they didn't want to be where they were going. He was charming, and no matter what he did, you couldn't stay mad at him. She remembered how much he'd cried after Ponyboy got the flu because he didn't remind him to bring a jacket to the movie like Darry had asked him to. That was the right kind of guy. Clever and kind and charming. He couldn't quote Shakespeare worth a damn, but it didn't matter. He was smart in his own way. As soon as she thought of coming over to him, he came over to her.

"Hey, Johnny," he said. "Hey, Lucy."

"Oh, hey, Two-Bit," Johnny said. "I didn't think you'd be here."

"Neither did I, but Dally said something about a party, and I figured it wouldn't be a party unless I crashed." He pointed the tip of his bottle at Lucy. "Plus, _I Love Lucy _here said she'd make it, and I had to see it with my own eyes."

"Well, she's with me."

He looked at her as though he wanted her to jump in. It took her a moment or two to notice, and she felt a little guilty about that. She hadn't noticed Two-Bit's eyes before. They really were nice looking.

"Oh!" Lucy said finally. "Yes. Yes, I'm a little out of my habitat, aren't I?"

"I'll say."

As Lucy made eyes at Two-Bit—_made eyes at Two-Bit, what was this_?—Johnny pointed into the distance.

"Aw, hey, there's Dally," he said. "I'll let him know we're here."

"_We're_?" Lucy asked, but Johnny didn't seem to hear. He went right on over to Dally like he always did. Lucy never understood why in the world Johnny wanted to be like Dally so much. Johnny was a nice kid—quiet and shy and awkward, but nice. He didn't have a record, and he didn't need one. To be like Dally was to guarantee that you'd end up dead before your twenty-fifth birthday, and Lucy didn't want that for Johnny. She didn't want that for her friend.

As soon as Johnny was out of their way, Two-Bit moved closer to Lucy. It looked like he wanted to say something to her—something important. Maybe he was going to tell her what Sadie had refused to tell her at school.

"Sometimes I think it's a shame Johnny wants to be like Dally," Two-Bit said.

"I think the same thing a lot," Lucy said. "Who'd wanna be cold like that?"

"Johnny wishes he didn't care," Two-Bit said, and Lucy nodded. She knew what he meant.

"You've been getting into it with Dally lately," Two-Bit said. "What's that all about?"

Lucy shrugged and smiled politely.

"I guess I don't know. I overheard him say I wasn't cute, but I don't think that's all it is. He's just mean."

"He can be mean. But I've known him pretty much my whole life. First time I ever swiped something from a grocery store, I was with Dally. He's younger than I am, but he's tougher. Taught me a lot I needed to know."

"It sounds like you're going to say 'but.'"

He laughed.

"I was, and I ain't just talking about my ass. First, though, you gotta tell me something. You hot for Dally, or is this just all one big rage against hoods like him?"

Lucy felt herself blush. She didn't know why. She'd never been "hot" for anyone, much less Dallas Winston. Even when she'd seen him with his shirt open the night they'd talked about the letter to his sister, she'd managed to keep her eyes locked to his. It didn't matter to her that a lifetime of fighting had kept him in good shape. It was a lifetime of fighting that got him there, and he didn't deserve to be handsome, even if he was.

"I don't have very many kind feelings about him," Lucy finally said. "He's too rough for me."

Two-Bit nodded. "Sometimes I think so, too. Has Sadie ever told you what happened between me and Dally? Darry was real involved, so I figured she must have heard some things."

Lucy's heart began to race. Yes, this was it. This was how she'd tear Dallas Winston down. This was how she'd get him out of her head.

"No," Lucy said. "No, Sadie wouldn't tell me a thing. She said Darry wouldn't let her."

"Well, as long as you don't tell Darry I told you. You remember the last time Dally went to jail? For busting the school windows?"

"Yeah."

She remembered when it happened because she thought it was a bit off. She thought it was off that Dally, who didn't go to school, would bust the windows of a place that meant almost nothing to him. Of course, Dallas Winston loved nothing if not destruction, so perhaps it didn't matter the building, so long as he could break it down. Still, she thought it was odd that he confessed to it. From what she understood, Dallas Winston wasn't one to fall on his own sword. But after awhile, it proved to her every suspicion she had about him. Most people, she figured, were motivated by passion. Dallas Winston committed crimes for the fun of them.

"Well, he tried to pin the whole thing on me," Two-Bit said. "Don't get me wrong. I was out walking with him right before he did it, but I went home to check on Katie since it was Mom's shift down at the bar. They were almost gonna let Dally go before he finally confessed."

Lucy's heart nearly stopped. She knew Dallas Winston wasn't the most admirable man—He wasn't admirable at all—but she thought he'd draw the line at hurting the guys who were supposed to be his friends. But of course, she was deceived. Someone as cold and selfish and prideful as Dallas Winston couldn't have friends.

"I don't believe it," she said. "I knew… I knew he was awful, but I thought he had was loyal to all of you. Somebody's got to do something about him."

"Well, he's already gone to jail," Two-Bit said. "What more do you want?"

"I'd take him out back and rough him up."

"If you were me?"

"If I were you, sure, but I was really thinking more if I were me. And I am me, so, I guess I could give it a try if you asked."

"Thanks, baby, but you don't gotta do anything. Besides, if you gave him the out, Dally would kill you or worse. Did you ever hear about the night he met Cherry Valance?"

Lucy nodded. She had, but she chose not to think about it. She didn't like to think about things like that very much—not because she thought they were unimportant, but because they were so important that they made her sick. She shouldn't have been surprised that Dallas Winston would try to pin his crime on someone who was supposed to be his friend. No one who tried to force himself on someone else was above that.

"If you ever find a way to get to him… I mean really get to him," Two-Bit said, "You gotta let me know. He's my buddy, but sometimes, even a buddy's gotta rough up a buddy."

Lucy nodded. Two-Bit put his hand on her shoulder as he took off.

"I gotta go, baby. I'll see you around," he said. "And if you see Dally…"

"I'll make sure I don't."

Two-Bit smiled a little. As he walked away, she felt her face turn pink again. She didn't want to look that way at Two-Bit, and she wasn't sure why she had. He was so different from the man she'd built up in her head; yet, he seemed hardly different from that image at all.

She blended into the background for a little while. She hadn't seen Johnny in what felt like forever. He was probably holed up talking to Dally—more likely, he was holed up listening to Dally. She might have hated Dally, but she couldn't help but wonder how he got on talking to Johnny like he did. He spoke as she did. He didn't run his mouth like Jane, he wasn't silent like Johnny, but he spoke enough. And when he did, he spoke with an air that said everything he said was irrefutably true. That was one thing Lucy was sure they didn't have in common. One thing! They had nothing in common. She refused to entertain the possibility that she could have anything, really, in common with Dallas Winston.

A few more moments passed, and Dally found his way over to her. He smirked and opened his mouth to say something, but she stopped him dead in his track.

"Go to hell," she spat and turned on her heels to find Johnny, Two-Bit, anybody but Dallas Winston.

He couldn't help but smile as she tore off. It wasn't that he liked it when a girl told him to go to hell, and it wasn't that he hated it. He'd heard it from enough girls in his time that he'd become sort of numb to it. No, he liked that Lucy Bennet was telling him to go to hell because it reminded him of something he was slowly beginning to realize. She was like him. Not in all ways, but in many. She was like him, and the more she refused to see it, the funnier it became.

Johnny came around and stood behind him. If he hadn't spent so much time with Johnny, he wouldn't have known there was anyone there. Johnny saw Dally's eyes follow Lucy as she got away from him, and he wanted to despair. But he couldn't. Johnny loved Dally, and Dally always got what he wanted.

"She's funny, isn't she, Johnny?" Dally asked.

"Yeah, Dal. She's funny."


	7. Chapter 7

Jane told Lucy she was crazy. She hadn't heard anything about Dally accusing Two-Bit of busting the windows at the school, and if she had, she would have shared it with the lunch table. Lucy nodded. That was about right. Jane stuck her nose into just about everything Steve was involved in, and she shared just about everything with everyone else. Dally might have been cold and mean and ruthless, but he wouldn't stick Two-Bit in the line of fire just to save his own skin. That wasn't what the gang did.

"And when did you start having a thing for Two-Bit, anyway?" Jane asked. It wasn't with the same curiosity she had when she suspected Lucy liked Dally. She sounded harsh. Lucy knew why. Lilly had all of a sudden formed a big crush on him, and that was a rule in their group. You didn't go after a boy your friend was going after. Of course, Lucy didn't see how it was possible for Lilly to go after Two-Bit. Sure, he was a junior, but he was almost nineteen. Sure, he was left back and had to repeat geometry in the same class period as Lilly, but Lilly was only turning sixteen in February. Three years wasn't a big difference in the grand scheme. This, however, was not the grand scheme, and Lucy couldn't condone it—especially not for Lilly Cade. Lilly was younger and more innocent than she let on. Lucy, on the other hand, was quickly approaching eighteen. She could handle somebody like Two-Bit better than Lilly could. She was sure of it.

"He's a nice guy," Lucy said. "He's fun, and he's funny. He's a good brother to Katie, most of the time. And he manages to stay funny even though Dally tried to send him to jail. He'd be good company on a walk."

"Because he carries a blade?"

"Because he carries a blade. But also because he can hold a conversation. When we talked last night at Buck's, it was so easy. There are so few people it's so easy for me to talk to. There's my parents and Sadie and you. And when I think about it, it's very easy for me to talk to—well, hold something of a conversation with, even if it's not…"

She stopped herself. Jane nodded, but the nod said she didn't have to keep going. They understood. Jane understood even better than Lucy did.

"If I hear anything about what happened between Dally and Two-Bit, I'll let you know," Jane said. "Hey, we're all going to the Dingo again tonight. It was just supposed to be me and Soda, but then Steve heard him making plans, so we had to open it up. You wanna come?"

And have the chance of giving Dallas Winston a real piece of her mind? She couldn't resist.

* * *

At lunch that day, Two-Bit came up to the girls' table and asked Lucy to take a walk outside with him. Lilly looked at her in a way that pleaded she stay put, but Lucy went, anyway. Lilly had a different crush every week, and in a few days, she would forget about Two-Bit as anything more than the goofy guy with a beer in his hand. Lucy wondered if that should alarm her, but she decided not to think about it. If nothing else, there was something she needed from him.

As they walked, Lucy asked, "How can you stand to be around Dally after he tried to pin the busted windows on you?"

Two-Bit shrugged. "I don't know. I guess it's like I said last night. He's a buddy, and even when a buddy tries to do you wrong, you don't just throw him out in the cold."

"But that's exactly what he tried to do to you."

"But he didn't. He came round. Did the right thing. That was tuff enough, so… I don't gotta go around hating him. You dig?"

Lucy nodded. She didn't, but if Two-Bit could stand to be around Dallas Winston, she supposed she'd have to learn to endure him, too. A long moment passed between them before she asked what she really wanted to ask.

"Dally has a sister, right?" Lucy asked.

"Yeah," Two-Bit said. "Her name's Violet. You haven't met her?"

"No. I never thought much about it until last night. So, you know her?"

"A little bit. Dally hasn't really seen her in years, so none of us have really seen her, either. When she was little, and their mom was still alive, she was a sweet kid. She and Katie got along, and I liked her a lot, too. But then, their mom—her name was Violet, too—she died, and Dally got even meaner. And when he got meaner, so did Violet. She was like Johnny that way. She wanted to be just like him."

Lucy frowned in contempt. How could so many people want to be someone as awful as Dallas Winston? She'd never seen him do a single kind or decent thing. Did they admire his callousness? Did they admire the way he always reeked of cigarette smoke? Did they admire the way he took pleasure in fighting with drunk kids in the park, like Ponyboy told her he did? When she moved from Detroit to Tulsa all those years ago, she hadn't realized any place could be more lawless than the one she'd just left. And here she was, living in a town with Dallas Winston and his delinquent disciples.

"I haven't seen her in awhile," Two-Bit said. "She dropped out of school just before she was supposed to start high school. Dally was real sore with her about that one. We all thought that was funny. She's just sixteen now. Same as Katie. Same as Lilly."

"Lilly's fifteen."

"Right. Close enough to sixteen, though. Least that's how I remember it."

Lucy thought it was an odd thing to say, but she chose to let it go. She had more important things on her mind, like showing up to the Dingo and reaming Dallas Winston a new one—for real this time. She couldn't wait to see the look on his face when he found out she wasn't interested in him at all and was, in fact, taken by someone else. She knew he cockily assumed she was taken by him, and in a morbid way, perhaps she was. But it was a morbid fascination with the limits of morality and nothing more. She wanted him to feel what it was like to be rejected. She wanted him to feel what it was like, for once, not to get what he wanted.

* * *

Technically, Lucy had gone to the Dingo as Johnny's date that night. He'd asked her after school, and she felt like she couldn't say no, especially not with an overexcited Lilly hovering over her shoulder. It was shocking Johnny should ask her for another date. He'd spent all evening the night before speaking with Dally, and she'd spent it speaking with Two-Bit. They'd exchanged small breaks in otherwise protracted, awkward silences. Lucy agreed, though she had convinced herself that Johnny was only asking her to appease Lilly, too. Johnny may have been the gang's pet, but Lilly was his pet, too.

Lucy was walking back from the bathroom when she saw Dally crawl in from the tear in the fence. She knew he had a quarter to spare and that he was just sneaking in for the sake of sneaking in. It was sickening, really. His head was at her feet, and she could have very easily stepped on him. But when he flashed her that smirk—the one she should have developed immunity to by now—she resisted. It would have been too easy, and Lucy liked to put up a real fight.

"You thinkin' of stepping on me?" he asked.

She was taken aback, but she didn't show it.

"You wish I were thinking of you at all," Lucy said.

Dally stood up, brushed himself off, and had a good laugh at her. She narrowed her eyes at him to keep from smiling, too. It wasn't that she wanted to have a happy moment with him—far from it. It was that his laugh was so _stupid_. Lucy remembered a book she read on African wildlife, and she decided that Dallas Winston's laugh must sound like a psychotic hyena. She would tell him so, but it wasn't like he would care. She never offended him. Everyone else managed to offend him. Ponyboy told her once that a guy at the candy store had asked Dally to move over a little bit, and Dally punched him so hard it knocked his tooth right out. But Lucy could never seem to get to him in the way she wanted to. It was terribly frustrating.

"You're thinking of me now, ain't ya?" he asked. "You here with Johnny?"

"It's none of your business."

"Everything's my business. You here with Johnny?"

Lucy was quiet for a long moment. "Yes."

Dally shook his head. Lucy wasn't sure what he meant, and for a reason she couldn't explain (or didn't care to explain), she stood there, eagerly waiting for whatever it was he was about to say.

"You be careful with him, OK?" Dally asked. "Kid's tough, but he's not as tough as me or Two-Bit or Steve. If you hurt him, you'll hurt him bad."

"I'm surprised you care that much about him, given your reputation."

"I'm surprised you've gone on two dates in a row given yours."

"I stay in and educate myself. I work hard to make sure I can get out of here. _You _bash people's skulls in just for the fun of it."

"I've never bashed a skull. I've come close, but I just haven't found the right place to crack it. Have you?"

Lucy narrowed her eyes again. His smirk still hadn't faded. He was so vile, so loathsome. She hated him and everything he stood for.

"It doesn't matter what I've done," she said. "What matters is that everyone out there helps you when you're in real trouble, but you never help anybody else."

Dally did not reply with a smart-alecky comment. Instead, his smirk turned into a bemused look. Lucy was taken aback. She'd never seen him look like that before.

"What?" he asked. There was no snark behind it.

"You heard me," she said. "Now, I'd prefer it if you left me alone for the rest of the night. Can you do that for me?"

"Yeah, sure. Whatever you say, honey."

He took off in one direction, and she took off in the other. They were likely to meet up again, but Lucy didn't care. She had better things to do. She'd have to figure out a way to let Johnny down easy, and she'd have to figure out a way to get Two-Bit alone. It wouldn't be too hard. Johnny was an understanding guy, and Two-Bit… well, Two-Bit just liked girls. He preferred blondes, of course, but Lucy was _Lucy_. It didn't matter what she looked like. He knew her well enough to like her on her own terms.

When she got back to her seat, she saw that Sadie was chatting amicably with Johnny—well, she talked, and Johnny very politely listened. Lucy felt a twinge of jealousy in her heart, followed by another wave of guilt. It wasn't that she wanted Johnny to continue his interest in her, although she had to admit, it was flattering to think someone was interested in her, the square. It was that she hadn't even tried to talk to Johnny for fear that he would mistake her typical friendliness for an invitation at steady dating. Boys were like that. Maybe even boys like Johnny.

She took her seat on the other side of Johnny. Slowly, Johnny turned around to talk to her. She felt herself begin to cringe.

"You look real pretty tonight, Lucy," he said.

"What? Oh, thanks, Johnny." She wanted to pay attention, but her eyes were scanning the place to see if she could find Two-Bit or Dally. She wanted to see either one—Two-Bit so she could see if they still laughed well together, and Dally, so that she could tear into him. Once was never enough to snap at Dallas Winston.

"I gotta tell you," he said. "I was surprised you said you'd go out with me again. We barely even said a word to each other last night. I thought you'd never wanna see me again."

"Of course I want to see you," Lucy said, and she meant it. Johnny was a good guy. He was her friend. Why didn't he just want to stay her friend? "I felt… I felt bad that we didn't talk very much yesterday." That was not a lie, either.

"Dally sure asked a lot of questions about you," Johnny said. Lucy felt her heart nearly jump out of her chest. She didn't want Dallas Winston to know anything more about her. She'd stayed away as far away from him as possible for as long as she'd lived in the neighborhood. It wasn't difficult. Dally got himself thrown in jail all the time. Why hadn't he gotten himself thrown in jail since that first night? It had certainly been long enough.

"Really?" Lucy asked.

"Yeah. Seems like he just figured out you're alive or something. I think he's confused about you."

"Confused? In what way?"

She felt a pain in her ribcage. Sadie. She was right to nudge her like that. Lucy was supposed to be on a date with Johnny, and it was rude to spend the whole night asking questions about Dallas Winston. But was it really so rude? Johnny worshipped the ground Dally walked on; she figured he was happy to talk about him when he had the chance. And after all, these were things she needed to know if she wanted to ream him a new one and get him away from all of her friends. She didn't care what Dallas Winston thought of her, but she cared what he knew about her.

"He said he never really thought about you until a couple of weeks ago, but then you glared at him," Johnny said. "He thought that was kind of tuff. He never would've thought you had it in you."

"What did you tell him?"

There was another pain in her ribcage.

"Told him that yeah, you were smart, and you liked writing poetry and all that, but that didn't mean you weren't tuff or that you couldn't hold your own in a fight if you wanted. It's like Ponyboy. He busted the end of a bottle to scare off some Socs in the parking lot at lunch one day, but as soon as they were gone, he picked up the glass because he didn't want nobody to get a flat tire. That's kinda what you're like. You don't fight, but you could if you wanted to."

Lucy almost smiled. She didn't like violence. She made that very clear. But sometimes, something came over her and she wanted to lash out. She wanted to throw punches and whip out switchblades like the guys did. In her heart, she knew it was wrong, and there had to be some way to figure things out without putting guys in the hospital or in their early graves. But she knew she could hold her own if it came down to it. She was bizarrely happy that Johnny knew it, too.

"I don't think Dally's ever met a girl who could fight but just won't," Johnny said. "He's used to girls like Sylvia who fight all the time, or girls like Cherry Valance who wouldn't even give it a second thought."

"You think I give it a second thought?"

Johnny nodded. "Sure I do. You could hold your own any time. I think that's why Dally's confused about who you are."

"Why?"

Sadie almost elbowed her in the ribcage again, but this time, she blocked it.

"I don't know," Johnny said. "He didn't say. Hey, Lucy, can we… I was thinking I could talk to you about the book I'd been reading. I wonder what you think of it."

Lucy gave him a small smile and let him ramble on about _Gone with the Wind_. She'd never read it—literature about the Civil War was never really interesting to her—but she'd seen the movie with Ponyboy and Sadie a little while back. She thought of Rhett Butler and how he'd said to Scarlett O'Hara, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Since she saw the movie, she never could figure out how she was supposed to interpret that. As Johnny went on about Ashley and Melanie, Dally took a seat behind them and started to mess with Jane, Steve, and Soda. He sat directly behind Lucy, and his leg accidentally brushed her hair as he moved in. He did not seem to care that Lucy was sitting there. She leaned forward in her seat and tried to listen to Johnny, all while silently checking in with Jane to see how she and Soda were getting on with Steve sitting right there. Dallas Winston didn't matter. She did not give a damn.

* * *

Later, she stood up to grab herself a Coke. Johnny offered to get it for her, but she didn't want him to spend any money on her. He needed to take care of himself and Lilly, and besides, she didn't want him to spend money on a girl who was interested in someone else. She got up and wandered to the concession stand. The line was long, and secretly, she was relieved. She didn't want to have to make more awkward conversation with Johnny, and she didn't want to watch the movie. None of them had known it was going to be _The King and I_, and if they had, they wouldn't have gone except for maybe Ponyboy and Carrie Shepard just so she could stick around him. Two-Bit must have known the movie was going to be a load of bull tonight, which was probably why he wasn't there. Lucy had hated _The King and I _since she was a little girl. She didn't like the fact that the story took place in Siam, and yet, they picked a Russian actor to play the king. She didn't like any of the music, either, except for that one song where Anna vents about the King and his narcissism. That was a good one.

She heard a bit of commotion at the back of the line, and a few seconds later, she figured out why. Dallas Winston had cut his way through so he could catch up with her. She rolled her eyes as he stood close to her.

"I told 'em I was with you," he said. "They didn't believe me, so I had to force it."

"You do that a lot, don't you?" Lucy asked. "You force things."

"Only the right things."

"And what are the wrong things?"

He smirked, which told Lucy that he hadn't the slightest idea what he was trying to say. She was going to tell him to get lost when he started back up, and she was strangely inclined to listen.

"So, do you like Johnny?" he asked.

"Johnny's my friend," Lucy said. "I thought he was your friend, too."

"He is. And I happen to know that he really likes you. I don't know why, considering you have a problem with snapping in people's faces, and you're clearly hung up on me."

Lucy glared at him again, and his smirk turned into a smile. That was the fighting look she'd given him the first night he noticed her. It was a welcome look.

"All right, fine, you're not hung up on me," he said. "The point is, look. If you don't wanna go out with Johnny, don't go out with Johnny. I don't want to see him get hurt."

"I'd like to believe you."

"So why don't you?"

"Because you like to see everyone hurt. I wouldn't be surprised if you liked seeing your friends hurt."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I think you do."

"No, I don't, but I ain't gonna fight you on it. I've gotta feeling you could kick my ass, and I ain't really itchin' to find out if I'm right."

"Because you don't want to have to tell people you got your ass handed to you by a girl?"

"No, because I don't really like having broken ribs."

Lucy had to contain her smile. Johnny knew she could hold her own if she really wanted to, and now, so did Dally. Should it bother her that the guys wondered what it would be like if she beat them up?

"What do you want, Dally?" she asked.

"Look, we both know that you don't want to date Johnny," he said. "Johnny knows that, too. And I was thinking, since I already talked to him about it and all, maybe you'd be interested in moving back a row and sitting with me tonight."

Lucy was beyond stunned. Didn't he understand that she hated him? And why didn't he hate her? Dally hated anyone who wasn't Johnny, and if she was going to break Johnny's heart, why would Dally want anything to do with her? Then, of course, she figured he wasn't truly interested, and he just wanted to use her for his own gain, like his attempt to throw Two-Bit in jail for something he did.

"I can't," she said.

"Why not?" he asked. "You're not gonna go steady with Johnny just to get to me, are you?"

"No, of course not. But I…"

She thought of Two-Bit and how he had made her laugh. She thought of Two-Bit and how he hadn't shown up to the movies to be with his friends. It didn't seem right to wait for him, especially given his arrant lack of commitment to anything, much less anyone. It wasn't that Dallas Winston was a better choice. She hated him. Then again, he was standing there, and sparring with him was certainly more stimulating than her stilted conversations with Johnny when they tried to be anything but good friends.

"Yes," she said. "I can move back a row."

As he smirked again, he looked at her hair. Insecure, she tucked a loose strand behind her ear and asked him what in the hell he thought he was looking at.

"You don't use hairspray," he said. It wasn't a question. Just an observation.

"No. I've heard a few of my dad's friends in the chemistry department say that aerosol is bad for the environment, but nobody will listen to me," Lucy said.

"Huh. I don't use hair oil."

What was that supposed to mean? Was he trying to force some kinship between them where it need not exist? She did not need to feel kinship with Dallas Winston. She thought about what Sadie would say if she were standing there. Sadie would tell her it was already stupid to reject a nice guy like Johnny, but it would be even more stupid to reject Dally because clearly, she must be interested in Dally. That wasn't true, of course. Lucy was interested in Dallas Winston but only as a synecdoche of the failed human experience. He was rough, cold, mean, and (It still surprised her!) disloyal. With what she believed she knew of him, she could never love him. Sadie would say it wasn't about love. It was about sitting next to a guy at the drive-in. But for Lucy, it was always about love. She had to feel an earnest connection, based on wits and beliefs, not whether or not either or both of you used hair product. She blamed it on the fact that her father was a scholar of Jane Austen, and he had read _Sense and Sensibility _to her for the first time when she was four years old. Austen frowned upon screwing around, and that was all it would be with Dallas Winston—screwing around. But it didn't matter. This was one night in a life of many more, and she had already accepted his offer.

* * *

When Lucy moved her seat to sit next to Dally, he didn't speak to her for five minutes. It was the longest he'd gone without egging her on since their first stare down. After those five agonizing minutes, Lucy tried to engage him in conversation, something she never imagined she would do for Dallas Winston.

"Look, if you wanted me to abandon my date and sit next to you, don't you think we should talk to each other?" she asked. "It seems silly for you to just sit here and pretend to watch the movie."

Finally, Dally said, "You don't know I ain't watchin' the movie."

"Oh, but I do. No one's ever been truly interested in _The King and I_—no one around here, anyway. Even I'm not interested in it, and I usually like musicals."

Dally rolled his eyes, and Lucy felt her heart sink. She didn't like it when anyone did anything like that in front of her. Back in Detroit, the kids at school had been mean to her. For them, she was too loud, too opinionated, too smart. They rolled her eyes at her all the time in the classroom and at lunch. She wasn't surprised that Dallas Winston would roll his eyes at her, but she didn't like that he made her remember a time she thought she'd forgotten.

"I think Two-Bit must have known that this was tonight's movie," Lucy said, crossing her arms and sinking down into her chair just a little bit. "He was smart enough not to show."

That piqued Dally's interest. He could finally ask her.

"Pony told me he saw you take a walk with Two-Bit today," Dally said.

"I did."

"And I saw you talking to him last night at Buck's when you was supposed to be there with Johnny."

"That's not all my fault. You stole Johnny, and Two-Bit stole me. I think we can call it even."

"Ain't what I mean, Bennet. I don't know how I feel about you talkin' to him like that."

Lucy snorted. How dare he try to control the people she spoke to? They weren't in a relationship, nor could they stand each other. They barely knew each other. Dallas Winston was in no position to give her advice about the people she thought she could speak to, especially not if he tried to get those people thrown in jail out of pure self-interest.

"You don't get to make my decisions for me," Lucy said. "You don't even know me."

"Yeah, well, I don't need to know a girl to tell her to lay the hell off Two-Bit like that," he said. "Trust me."

"I already told you I don't trust you."

"Well, trust me about this one. You don't need to be following after Two-Bit."

"That's rich, coming from you. You only want me to stay away from him because you're embarrassed about what you did."

"I don't know what you're talking about, but I'd like it a lot better if you shut up and watched the movie for a minute."

"I'd like it a lot better if _you _shut up."

"I will!"

He sighed—almost like he was disappointed or sorry. The sound was so foreign that Lucy thought the rapture was quickly impending.

"Gimme a minute," Dally said.

"A minute for what?"

"Just a _minute_, Bennet. Okay?"

She nodded and muttered her reply, and he took out a cigarette. He offered it to her before he smoked it himself, almost smiling as she refused it. He'd never been out with a girl who'd turned down a smoke before. It was odd, but it was a good kind of odd. He couldn't explain it, but he was right about Lucy Bennet. She had nice eyes, she was sure pretty, and she was funny. He stopped himself before he thought of her any more. She was just a girl—Soda's twin sister's best friend. She wasn't the kind of girl he should be sitting next to at the drive-in, but then again, neither was Cherry Valance, and he'd been trying to take her out forever before that stare down with Lucy. He should be out with Sylvia, knowing she was thinking of three other guys all while they were together. That was the best he could do.

He knew one thing about Lucy Bennet. He wasn't the worst guy she could choose to go out with on a Tuesday night. He looked over at Lucy, who had her arms folded tautly over her chest, and he wondered. How could someone like her be interested in someone like him?

They were quiet for a long time when Lucy began to shiver. Her sweater wasn't nearly as thick as she thought it was when she left the house. Dally noticed how cold she was getting, so he stood up, took off his leather, and handed it to her. When she took it, she stared at both him and the jacket, dumbfounded.

"Don't look at me like that," he said. "Just put it on. Maybe say thank you if you think about it."

"I'm not sure what to say."

"Sure you do. You're supposed to be smart."

"Yes, I am, but you're… the most confusing person I think I've ever met."

The corners of his mouth turned up into a smile. So, she was finally figuring it out.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, on the one hand, you're a common criminal," she said.

"No offense to me, right?"

"Oh, no, complete offense. You're a common criminal who wouldn't hesitate to throw one of his friends under the bus if it meant saving his own skin."

"I really don't know what you're talking about."

"It's nice of you to try to make yourself look better than you are, but I know too much. You're that guy—that awful guy—and then you turn around and hand me your jacket because you think I look cold. I've also heard about some of the stuff you've done for Ponyboy and Johnny, like after some of the Socs tried to drown Ponyboy in that fountain..."

"And what? What's the problem?"

Lucy sighed. She knew her eyes were smiling, but it wasn't because she liked sitting with Dallas Winston. It was because she was uncomfortable. She had never gone this long without snapping at him, and strangely, she didn't even feel like she was suppressing any rage. They were just talking.

"I can't seem to make up my mind about who you are anymore," she said. Immediately, she wished she hadn't. That sentence left her emotionally liable.

"Uh-huh," Dally said. "And what? How come you can't make your mind up by yourself, huh?"

Lucy made no reply, even though she knew the answer. She could make her mind up about him if she wanted to, and in a way, she already had. And yet, she didn't want him to be as smart as he was. He was certainly smart if he was able to ask her a question like that. But she didn't want him to be smart. She didn't want him to have any insight or any wit, though after growing up on the streets for nearly eighteen years, it was only logical that he'd develop them. No! He wasn't allowed to be intelligent. He wasn't allowed to be anything more than a no-count hood. Yet, she couldn't write him off. She didn't know why, but it was clear that she couldn't write him off because she had been sitting next to him for nearly half an hour and had not attempted to get up and move away from him.

"I'm taking my time," Lucy finally said.

"Well, don't take too long," Dally said. "I ain't gonna give you all the time in the world, if that's what you want."

"Of course you're not. It's not yours to give."

He laughed and leaned back in his chair, getting quiet again. She tucked another strand of her hair behind her ears. All around her, everyone was talking, and everyone sounded like they fit right into a place. Sadie and Johnny were talking amicably, almost like they'd forgotten Lucy had ever been sitting with them. Jane and Soda managed to flirt with one another even though Steve was trying to hold his best friend's attention the whole night. Even Ponyboy seemed more interested in Carrie Shepard than before, and she was waxing about the moral consequences of pulling a blade out in biology class, even if it was to help dissect a frog. Lilly and Katie giggled about everyone else. Everyone seemed in their right place, and when Lucy looked down at her lap, she had to wonder why she felt so lost.

Then Carrie Shepard started singing "King of the Road" very loudly, and she was taken out of the moment.

"Can it, Carrie!" Steve yelled down to her.

"We're trying to watch a movie!" Lilly yelled back.

Lucy covered part of her face with her hand. She loved Carrie just as she loved all of her other friends, but Carrie was certainly the most embarrassing of them. She loved to talk about moral quandaries and make her friends feel badly about themselves for having violent or harsh thoughts. She also had very little social awareness, no matter how many times Jane would try to teach her otherwise. Jane loved Carrie the same way Lucy loved Lilly Cade. Lucy figured it was because the Shepards' father had never been in the picture, and their mother walked out on them when Tim was only fifteen. He hadn't done such a good job looking after himself, and he'd done an even worse job of looking after his siblings, especially little Carrie. She didn't always know the right thing to do, but it was because no one had ever been around to teach her.

"Sometimes I can't believe that's Shepard's kid sister," Dally said. He didn't even make eye contact with Lucy. He must have known better.

"Uh-huh," Lucy said. "Me neither."

As if on cue, Lilly and Katie came running out in front of them. Others yelled for them to sit down so they could watch the screen, but that meant nothing to them. They skidded to a giggly halt in front of Lucy.

"Lucy!" Lilly squeaked. "Who's prettier? Katie or me?"

"No, Lucy!" Katie laughed. "Who's prettier? Lilly or me?"

"You know that's the same question, don't you?" Lucy asked.

"It doesn't matter!"

"You still have to answer it!"

She sighed and turned to consult with Dally, as though he'd have something to say to get the younger girls to run away. But her heart dropped to her knees when she saw that already, Dally had gotten up from his seat and was sneaking out of the drive-in back through that hole in the fence.

Lucy's face turned red with rage again. She should have known better than to try to get to know him. He couldn't manage to stay loyal to Two-Bit, and they were part of the same gang. What made her think he would show grace to Two-Bit's kid sister? She folded her arms across her chest again, silently cursing herself for thinking she could engage with Dallas Winston. She had made her mind up about him. In the moment, that much was certain.


	8. Chapter 8

Lucy never could have anticipated what would happen on the walk home. She figured after he spent all night talking to Sadie, Johnny had long forgotten about her. And then, he pulled her aside, the bravest she'd ever seen him behave.

"What's the matter, Johnny?" Lucy asked. "I don't think I've ever seen you like this before."

"Yeah, I'm okay," he said. "I wanted to ask you something."

"Go on."

He took a deep breath, but he didn't seem scared. He seemed like he was ignoring every part of his brain that told him to be scared. For a moment, Lucy had to admire it.

"I know you ended up sitting with Dally tonight," he said, "and I had a real good time talking with Sadie. Did you know she likes Emily Dickinson?"

"Yeah, I did. Sadie's got good taste in books and stuff."

"Ponyboy tried to get me to read some her stuff a little while back. I thought it was real easy to get since they're so short, but then Sadie told me there's more to 'em than meets the eye. I think that's tuff enough. Don't you?"

Lucy nodded. She didn't have much to say. She kept looking around, trying to see if she could find traces of Dally or Two-Bit anywhere. There were none.

"Hey, Lucy?" Johnny asked.

"Yeah?"

"Can you… can you slow down for a sec? I'm tryin' to ask you a question."

Lucy felt her heart drop into her knees. Here it was. Here was the moment she'd been dreading for days—the moment she never thought would actually come. She slowed her pace and let Johnny catch up to her, making sure she looked him just above the eye. She didn't have it in her to look him in the eye and break his heart, and this was the only other way to do it.

"Sorry," she said. "It's just getting cold, and I always walk faster than normal when it gets cold. What did you wanna ask me?"

Johnny looked down at his beat-up sneakers and then back up to Lucy's chin. She suddenly became very aware that she was just a bit taller than he was. She wanted to shrink. Johnny deserved to be taller. She couldn't explain it, but it was true.

"I was thinkin'," he said. "I know our past couple of dates haven't worked out too good. Last night you got caught up with Two-Bit; tonight Dally wanted you to sit with him. But I was thinkin'… do you wanna try again tomorrow night? We can get something to eat after school, maybe."

Lucy really wasn't stunned by Johnny's question. She saw it coming from a mile away. She just didn't know how to answer it. In her heart, she wanted to say no. She wasn't interested in him as anything more than her buddy, Johnny, and to try to go on more dates was a bad idea. It was a terrible idea. But she could see the look of disappointment on Lilly's face, and she could hear Sadie begin to criticize her now. What did it matter if Johnny was available? Lucy was a young woman, and she had plenty of time to find someone to date if she wanted to. It didn't need to be Johnny because he was there. Johnny deserved better than that.

"Oh," she finally managed. She felt real cool.

Johnny didn't say anything, but Lucy felt as though she'd run over a tiny puppy in the street. That was the poor little look he was giving her. She thought of what Dallas Winston might try to say to her if she hurt Johnny too badly. Then she decided he might as well bring it on. It gave her a great pleasure to fight with him.

"Johnny, I don't know if that's such a good idea," Lucy got out. It only took a few days to be able to say it, but she finally managed.

He looked down at his shoes again, only a little embarrassed. It was almost as though he'd anticipated her exact reply.

"You're a good friend, and I really do like you," Lucy added, and she meant it. She didn't know where the gang would be without Johnny. "But I think… I just don't think we're meant to be going on dates with each other. It doesn't feel like the best match in the world. And I'm afraid if we keep forcing it and going out on dates, then…"

"Then we might not be so good at being friends anymore," he finished for her.

Lucy nodded. "I'm sorry. Really, I am."

"It's all right. I know what you mean. It's like if Soda was gonna date… oh, I don't know, Jane, or something."

Lucy's eyes widened, a little panicked. All the girls knew about Jane and Soda's burgeoning romance, but she didn't think any of the boys knew. She wasn't even sure if Darry and Ponyboy had figured it out yet.

"How did you know about Soda and Jane?" she asked.

"Everybody knows Jane's crazy about Soda," Johnny said. "Isn't that all there is to know?"

Lucy exhaled in relief. She hadn't ruined anything yet, except for maybe Johnny's pride.

"I mean to say it would be strange if they dated, but it would be even stranger if they broke up," Johnny said. "Same thing for you and me, you'd have to think."

Lucy nodded. "Yeah. I'm sorry, Johnny. I really wish I…"

"It's all right, Lucy. You don't gotta say you're sorry no more. I get it. I ain't…"

But he didn't finish his thought. Lucy bit her tongue and felt her skin turn bright white. Johnny didn't finish his thought because he couldn't. He couldn't say he wasn't upset with her because that would have been a lie, and Johnny wasn't prone to telling lies—not to his friends.

"Thank you," Lucy said. She felt a little bit better having talked with Johnny, but she knew that wouldn't last. She'd have to go to the lunch table tomorrow and listen to Lilly tear her apart for having turned down her brother. In the end, it would be all right. Lucy loved Lilly, and Lilly needed that. If Lilly needed to scream and yell at Lucy for a few minutes at lunch because Lilly felt invisible everywhere else, Lucy would sit there with her arms wide open. She'd do anything for that kid, even let her bawl her out for rejecting a date from her beloved big brother.

* * *

Sure enough, Lilly was in a yelling mood at the lunch table the following afternoon.

"I just don't understand," she said. "You like Johnny, and he likes you!"

"Lilly, just…" Lucy tried, but Lilly wouldn't let her.

"No, I won't. Do you know how lucky you are for _any _boy to want to take you out, much less a boy as nice as my brother? How could you just turn him down like that?"

Lucy sighed. She hated it when Lilly was upset. Her big, dark eyes would go narrow, and her bottom lip would start to quiver. She'd spent all her life learning to hold it in… hold it in or else. But even Lilly Cade had to fall apart sometimes. Unfortunately, she tended to fall apart all over Katie or Lucy, the people whom she knew would love her no matter what she said to them. Lucy steeled herself and let Lilly continue to explode.

"You don't know how long he worked up the nerve to ask you for a date," Lilly said. "We worked for weeks. I told him all the things you like and all the things you hate. By the end of it, he was an expert in all things Lucy Bennet."

_A relationship isn't just about knowing somebody's likes or dislikes_, Lucy wanted to say. She knew Lilly would never listen, and even if she tried, she wouldn't hear it. At fifteen, Lilly was too obstinate to be moved from her romanticism. Lucy hung her a head a little bit. She would be eighteen in just two weeks, and she was too obstinate to be moved from her romanticism, too. Hers was just a different kind, one with more poetry and more wit. She knew it was too much to ask for, but if she could just get closer, she just knew she'd be happier that way. She wanted to get close, and Johnny, for as much as she loved him, wasn't close enough.

"I just don't understand it," Lilly said. "I thought it was a perfect match. You're always going on and on about how you want a boy who's sensitive, who likes stories, and who doesn't kick the shit out of anything that gets in his way."

There was a collective gasp heard around the lunch table. All of the other girls swore from time to time (especially Katie Mathews), but Lilly never did. To Lucy's memory, that was the first time she'd heard anything harder than _darn _leave Lilly's mouth. It was then that Lucy realized Lilly was probably upset with her for more than simply her rejection of Johnny.

"I swear, Lucy, sometimes I just don't understand you," Lilly said. "I don't understand what it is you want."

Lucy didn't know what to say. It was obvious now that Lilly was more upset about Lucy's sudden preference for Two-Bit than about how she turned Johnny down the night before, but Lucy didn't want to ask her about it in front of the table and embarrass her. She stood and walked over to where Lilly sat, bumping Katie out of her usual spot.

"You could ask," Katie muttered, but Lucy ignored it for the time.

"Lilly, I'm sorry," Lucy said again. "I'm sorry I told Johnny no. But you've got to understand. Sometimes, there are people you like in a certain way, and others you like… differently. Johnny's my friend."

"And you're afraid that if you got mixed up with a friend, then it would make things strange for all of us in the end?"

"That's a part of it, yeah. The biggest part is that when I look at Johnny, I don't feel the way you think I should. It's just not there. You have that feeling for a different boy every month. You know what it's like, don't you?"

Lilly nodded, though there was a bit of recalcitrance. Lucy only thought she fell in love with a different boy every month. That was wrong. Since she turned fourteen, she'd only felt the way Lucy was poorly describing one time and for one boy. She only kept it a secret because she didn't want anyone to panic, like Steve would if he found out about Jane and Soda. And now, without even meaning to, Lucy was going to try to take the only boy she'd ever been in love with away from her. If Johnny wasn't a fit distraction, who would be?

"I guess so," Lilly said. "Johnny says he's already moved on. I can't say I believe him. Could you? Not twenty-four hours after you reject him, he decides he feels the same way about a whole different girl. How is that possible?"

"It's possible," Sadie mused from behind her sandwich. "Boys feel things differently than girls do. I remember over the summer, Ponyboy was in love with Cherry Valance for the entire month of June. Then July rolled around, and…"

In her peripheral vision, she caught Carrie Shepard staring at her eagerly. She rolled her eyes a bit and shrugged her shoulders.

"What happened in July?" Carrie asked. Unbeknownst to the rest of the lunch table, Ponyboy had kissed Carrie at the movies in July. Neither of them had talked about it since, and Carrie felt too guilty to bring it up to anyone.

"I don't actually know," Sadie said. "I just know he wasn't on about Cherry anymore."

"Speaking of Cherry," Katie said, "I saw her talking to Jane before the first bell this morning. It looked almost serious. I almost had to run in between them to lighten the mood, 'cept Cherry was gone before I could come up with a good line."

Lucy's eyes went from kind and pleading with Lilly to hard and angry with Katie.

"And you didn't think it was a good idea to mention that earlier?" Lucy asked.

"It's not that I didn't care!" Katie tried to defend herself. "Lilly had something to say, and I was gonna let her. I was gonna get around to telling you about Jane."

"When, Kate? When there was a natural point in the conversation?"

"Naw. It just so happened there was one. I got lucky."

Lucy bit her lip in frustration. Sometimes, she wished she could turn it off. She wished she could stop caring, stop shouldering all of her friends' burdens and grievances. There were those moments she wished she could be more like Dallas Winston and care only for herself. But there she was, day in and day out, ready to fight for them the minute they looked at her like they needed help. She didn't want to be as tough as she was. Living in this neighborhood and knowing these girls, with beautiful hearts that were easily broken, didn't give her much of an alternative. She was as firm as the Motor City she came from, but unlike Dallas Winston, she would use her firmness to help her friends, not betray them.

"Has anyone seen Jane?" Lucy asked. "When was the last time anyone saw Jane?"

"I saw her after first period," Sadie said. "We just passed each other in the hall, so we didn't have time to talk. The more I think on it, though, the more she looked like she was going to cry."

The two friends looked at one another, silently communicating, and rushed out of the lunchroom. Lucy followed Sadie up to the second floor of the school, confused as to where they were headed.

"Why do you think she's in the building?" Lucy asked. "If she was that upset, don't you think she'd try to leave school?"

"She's in the building," Sadie said. "Where else do you think she would be? She hardly has a place to go home to."

"What about the DX?"

"She's not there, Lucy."

"How do you know?"

"I know."

They came upon a tiny supply closet just outside of the school library. It was so small that no one ever would have noticed it if they hadn't reason. Sadie knocked on the door.

"Jane?" she asked.

Before Lucy could open her mouth to object, a muffled voice came out from behind the door.

"Sadie, is that you?" Jane's voice.

"Yeah, it's me. It's Lucy, too. Can you open up?" Sadie asked.

Slowly, Jane opened the door. Her eyes were red and puffy with tears, and she looked like she'd been in that dingy supply closet for hours, likely because she had been. Lucy's heart broke to see her that way. Jane had been her friend since she was fourteen years old, and she'd seen her cry a little before. She'd seen her angry and full of venom. But this was not a typical look for Jane Randle. On the average day, Jane Randle was immovably tough. Today, she looked hopeless. Lucy wanted to kill whoever made Jane feel this way.

Before Lucy could even ask who she had to put the screws to, Sadie exhaled.

"So, this is what Soda didn't want to talk about this morning," she said.

Lucy looked at her closest friend, confused out of her mind. Again, she didn't even have time to ask what was going on because Jane nodded.

"Last night," Jane said, her voice so small that it didn't even seem like hers. "Steve found out about me and Soda, so Soda called it off. He dumped me on the walk home from the movie."

Sadie rolled her dark eyes and punched the cinderblock wall above her, muttering a few choice words about her twin brother.

"How did Steve even find out?" Lucy asked, worried Johnny had something when she accidentally slipped up on the walk home from the Dingo.

"Yeah, Katie said something about you having a chat with Cherry before the first bell this morning," Sadie said. "What was that about? Did Cherry have something to do with this?"

"No, of course not," Jane said, sniffing between almost every word. "She heard about it from Ponyboy, so she came to talk to me. She wanted to see if I was OK. It was real nice of her and everything, but it was just… I don't know. It reminded me of what happened, so I held it in until I got up here."

Sadie opened her arms to Jane, who moved out of the supply closet just slightly to accept Sadie's hug. Lucy watched her two friends; a bit amazed by the connection she didn't even know they had.

"You must be awful sad," Sadie said. "You haven't run up here since they called you dumb in algebra two years ago."

Lucy felt her hands turn into fists again. She looked down at them, surprised. Why was she making fists when she called herself a pacifist? What was this? Did it happen more often than she recognized? That bubbling of wrath was familiar, but how often did it come with balling her palms into fists? It must have happened before. It felt so natural when she did it this time that it couldn't have been new. Who was she? What was she becoming?

How could someone have called Jane dumb, and how could Lucy have never heard a word of it? How did Lucy not know that Jane had a hiding spot in the school for when she was terribly sad, but Sadie knew all about it? What else did her friends keep from her? Why did they feel like they needed to keep anything from her?

_If your palms so easily turn to fists, they probably worry what you'll do with them_, her inner voice whispered to her. She waved the voice away. She did not like what it said. She did not like that it was telling some sort of half-truth.

"Jane," Lucy said, her voice cracking with uncertainty, something she hated more than anything in the world. "If Cherry was just trying to look out for you, then what really happened between you and Soda? Who told Steve about the two of you?"

Jane closed her eyes. She didn't want to tell Lucy—really, she didn't. She wanted nothing more than for Lucy to figure out the truth about herself, but she asked a direct question. Jane owed it to her to tell her what she knew. Lucy was a smart girl (She made a habit of saying it almost all the time, anyway.). Eventually, she would learn how to put the pieces together.

"It was Dally," Jane said. "Dally told Steve about me and Soda."

Lucy didn't say anything. She couldn't. She was too busy seeing red.


	9. Chapter 9

After school that day, Sadie went home with Lucy. Normally, they would head over to the Curtis house, but Lucy was worried she'd beat Sodapop to a pulp after what happened with Jane. She didn't admit that in front of Sadie, but it didn't matter. Sadie could feel her best friend's rage more easily than Lucy herself could feel it.

They flopped down on Lucy's bed, a couple bottles of Coke between them (Sadie really only had the chance to drink Coke when she was with Lucy, since Darry kept the fridge stocked with Pepsi for Ponyboy.). Lucy tried to read from her well-worn copy of _Madame Bovary_, and Sadie thumbed through a book of Katherine Mansfield's short stories that Ponyboy insisted she read. Neither could focus on the words in front of them. Both were jumpy—one from pure rage, the other from anxiety.

"I can't believe the nerve of him," Lucy said.

"Who're you talking about this time?" Sadie asked, though she was fairly confident she knew the answer.

"Dally," Lucy said. "He has no right to meddle where he doesn't belong. What makes him think he can ruin Jane's plans like that? What makes him think he's at the center of the universe?"

If she had been feeling more dangerous, Sadie might have asked Lucy what made her think she was at the center of the universe, but her news was too fragile to take such a risk.

"Well, that's Dally," Sadie said. "You know what he can be like. He does what he feels like when he feels like doing it. Did you expect more out of him?"

Lucy felt her heart sink. Yes, in some odd way, she did expect more out of Dallas Winston. But she should have known better. He was willing to send Two-Bit to jail for something he did. Of course he was willing to wreck Jane's plans with Soda. What did Jane mean to him?

"It doesn't matter," Lucy said quickly. "I'm just angry. I wish things were better for Jane. When I saw her cry like that, it scared the hell out of me. I never want to see her cry like that again."

"Yeah, well, get used to it. Jane's loved Soda since she was a little girl. She's going to take this one hard. And I don't want you snapping at anybody because they're crying over boys. Not everybody's like you."

With that, Lucy wanted to sink into the ground, never to emerge again. It wasn't that Sadie never alerted her to her insensitivity. She did it all the time. It was that this time, it felt different. Maybe it was because she was developing romantic feelings of her own. She just never could figure out exactly how to play the game of teenage romance. Was she supposed to be throwing herself after any guy with a decent smile? Was she supposed to get hysterical when he didn't return her feelings, which may not have even existed in the first place? She didn't understand how the girls and guys her age could just flip a switch and fall head over heels for somebody. If it worked like that, Two-Bit would have asked her for a date by now, she assumed.

"Don't say anything," Sadie said, holding a finger up toward Lucy's mouth, which had dropped itself into a perfect, offended _O_-shape. "There's something I've gotta tell you."

"You OK?"

"Yeah, I'm OK. Listen. You remember at lunch earlier today when Lilly told us Johnny had already moved on from you?"

"Yeah, I do. How come?"

"Well, the reason I know it's true is because it's me."

Lucy furrowed her dark brow at her friend, who was blushing nervously. It wasn't even a romantic blush—just an anxious one. Lucy was mortified on Sadie's behalf.

"You?" she asked. "As in… you're going out with Johnny now?"

Sadie nodded. "He asked me out just a few minutes after he asked you. It wasn't hard to say yes."

The world began to spin around Lucy Bennet in that one moment. To anyone else, it would have been insignificant. They would have brushed it off their shoulders and wished their best friend a good time on her upcoming date. This was different. It felt like Lucy didn't even know Sadie anymore. She didn't know what to say, so, naturally, she said the worst things she could manage.

"Are you serious?" Lucy asked. "I didn't even know you liked him!"

"He's a good friend," Sadie said. Lucy was exhausted by that one. What made everyone think a good friend could always become a good love?

"But isn't that not enough? Don't you have to like the person in order for it to work?"

Sadie shook her head. There was so much she had to say to Lucy, and in that moment, she didn't care whether or not it was dangerous. It needed to be said. She needed to understand how the world worked outside of her books and outside of her privilege.

"You don't get it," Sadie said.

"What's to get?"

"You're such… never mind."

Lucy knew what Sadie was going to say. If she were being honest with herself, she wanted Sadie to say it. It always felt as though the other girls were a little afraid of Lucy. They might have been afraid that she would judge them no matter what they did. Lucy was sick of getting away with it. She needed Sadie to yell at her. She needed it more than she ever knew.

"Go on," Lucy said, but Sadie was already thinking of something else.

"We haven't talked about it or anything, but I figure Johnny and I will get married sometime after he turns eighteen," she mused, more to herself than to Lucy, though she did need for her to hear. "He needs to get out of that house… I wonder if there's a way we could take Lilly with us… probably not, but there's gotta be something someone can do… maybe not… Mom and Dad tried to help, but they never could, really…"

For a reason she couldn't quite narrate, Lucy felt herself become angrier than ever.

"You're thinking you're going to _marry _Johnny? You haven't even been on a single date! How could you think you're going to marry someone you've never been out with?"

Sadie's face turned from a haphazard frown to a hard frown. In a fleeting moment, Lucy felt the wind knock itself right out of her. She'd never seen Sadie look like Darry before.

"You really don't understand," Sadie said. She wasn't yelling, but this was worse than yelling. "You don't understand at all. I've known since my parents died that the minute I turn eighteen, I've gotta get married."

"Why would you say that? You've got plenty else you can do. You're smart. You could go to college…"

Sadie shook her head. She didn't stop shaking her head. It almost made Lucy nervous but not quite.

"It's not like that, Lucy, and I think you know it. Darry couldn't go to college when Mom and Dad were alive, and Soda was never gonna go at all. I've always known that between Pony and me, only one of us was going to college, and it was never gonna be me."

Lucy inhaled deeply. Since Sadie's parents were killed, Lucy always vaguely understood how hard it must be for her to get by. She lived in a house with only brothers, and the person responsible for looking after her was almost no more than a kid himself. But she never really thought about how tough it must be to be Sadie Curtis—at least, not seriously. Half of her wanted to step up to her best friend and wrap her in a hug, but the smarter half of her knew to stay put. Sadie didn't need anyone to pander to her. At least, it would feel like pandering.

"Sadie…"

"Save it, OK? You don't understand. You know what's gonna happen to you when you graduate this year. You're gonna get a scholarship to college because you're smart and because your dad teaches at the university. It's not even gonna matter what you get your degree in because your parents aren't gonna have to pay for it. Me… I don't even know what I'm gonna do tomorrow."

"You're going out with Johnny, I guess."

Sadie bit the inside of her bottom lip to keep from screaming at Lucy. She didn't want to yell at her in her own house when her mother was downstairs making dinner. It seemed rude, and Sadie Curtis was nothing if not polite and courteous. Sometimes, she thought it might be her downfall.

"It has to work out between Johnny and me," she said, trying her best to keep her patience. "It just has to. And it will, I think. Johnny and I get along fine. We've known each other practically our whole lives. He read Dickinson for me. He's kind to me. And I can't be a financial burden on Darry for much longer. He's got to worry about himself, too. Johnny and I could make it work on our own. He's not bad with his hands. He could get a job doing something handy, I think. And I… well, I don't quite know what I'd do, yet, but I'm bright. I'd figure it out."

"But don't you see? That's my point. You're bright, Sadie. You're too bright to shack up with a guy you haven't even been on one date with who you don't love."

It no longer mattered whether Lucy's mother could hear. Sadie needed to yell, and Lucy needed to be yelled at.

"Goddamn it, Lucy, goddamn it!" Sadie's voice seemed thunderous. "You know what you are? You're no more than a no-count, common hypocrite! You think romance is silly, but when I tell you I'm dating to be practical, you knock it because I'm not in love. Which one is it? And which one do you want? You've gotta make up your mind someday, kid. And if you don't make up your mind, fine. Just quit judgin' everybody else for having feelings! Figure your shit out, but don't knock us while you're doing it."

And though Lucy opened her mouth to say something seconds later, Sadie was already out the door, through the living room, and on her way back to her own house. Lucy thought about crying, but she chose not to. She knew that her friendship with Sadie was too strong to lose it after one tiff, and in a day or two; things would be fine between them again. Now, Lucy was too distracted to cry. She thought of how sorry Jane looked at school earlier that day, and she decided she needed to do something about that. She wasn't going to go after Steve or Soda. Steve was doing what he thought he had to do as an older brother, and Soda was doing what he thought he had to do as a best friend. That was their conflict, and despite her arrogance, Lucy knew she had no role. She could, however, mess with Dallas Winston for trying to mess with her friend. That, for a reason she didn't know, felt like her place.

* * *

Judging by the time of day, Lucy figured Dally would probably be at Buck's. She wasn't sure whether or not he lived there, but he almost seemed to, so it felt like a good place to look for him. On her long walk to a place she really didn't want to be, a voice she didn't quite recognize called to her.

"Hey!"

She looked up and saw Tim Shepard come running at her. Although she was relatively sure Tim wouldn't hurt her, she felt her heart jump into her throat, anyway. Tim was even tougher and meaner than Dally, and despite the fact that they didn't know each other well at all, Lucy couldn't help but fear him just a bit. Why was he coming after her like this? They'd been at a few of the same parties before, and Lucy had walked Carrie home a few times. But Tim never so much as grunted a halfway sincere "Thank you" at her when she did that. What could he want now, after years of barely acknowledging that she lived in the neighborhood?

"I know you," he said. "You're friends with Angela, ain't ya?"

Lucy shook her head. Tim sighed, as though he had forgotten Carrie for a moment and was sorry now that he remembered. Lucy hated it when people acted that way about Carrie Shepard, especially her own siblings. She'd developed a strange taste in literature, a bizarre obsession with right and wrong (no doubt thanks to watching Tim and Curly get hauled into police stations and reform schools nearly all her life), and her crush on Ponyboy was (at times) uncomfortable, but there wasn't really anything _the matter _with Carrie. She was just different—too different, one might say, to make it where she was living.

"Oh," Tim said. "Carrie."

"Carrie's a nice kid," Lucy said. "I hope you see that."

"She is a nice kid. Just a little strange. Speakin' of the strange kid, I heard something from her last night."

"And what might that be?"

"She said you went out with ole Dally last night. That true?"

Lucy felt herself get flustered, which she chocked up to embarrassment that anyone would ever assume she willingly went on a date with Dallas Winston. In retrospect, she supposed she had gone on a date with him, but it wasn't something she planned. It couldn't count if she didn't plan it.

"I was out with Johnny Cade," she said. "Then Dally asked me to sit with him, so I did. It didn't mean anything."

Tim nodded and muttered something in reply. Lucy wasn't listening. She tried to walk faster and get away from him, but Tim was tall. His steps were no match for her speed. What was this? Why did he want to talk to her? Yesterday, she would have bet anything Tim Shepard didn't even know her name. It didn't make sense for him to want her ear now. Then again, it didn't make sense that Sadie would want to marry Johnny after not even one date, and it didn't make sense that she was chasing Dallas Winston down like a spurned lover. She decided not to ask herself any more questions.

"So, let me ask ya," Tim said. "If sittin' with Dally last night didn't mean nothing, how come you're on your way to go see him?"

Lucy's heart stopped. Before she could ask Tim how he knew where she was headed, he answered the question for her.

"You're headed the same way I am—to Buck's," he said. "I gotta score to settle with Dally. Son of a bitch slashes my tires, then he thinks it'll be real funny to steal my hubcaps one by one."

Lucy bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. As much as she reviled Dallas Winston, she had to admit it was a decent trick. The image of Tim Shepard walking up to his car and seeing another one of his hubcaps just vanished, slamming his fists down on the hood of the car and cursing Dally's name… it was a good one. She couldn't help that she was a sucker for recurring gags. A couple years earlier, she'd laughed too hard every time Sadie would put a rubber spider on Soda's plate at dinner.

She swallowed hard. She didn't want to think about Sadie.

"I see," she said. "Well, it happens I've got a score to settle with him, too."

Tim snorted incredulously.

"You?" he asked. "I don't believe it."

"Well, start believing it. It's true. Dallas Winston thinks it's a good idea to mess with my friend's life? Gives me a good excuse to mess with him."

"Carrie said you could play tough when you wanted. Guess we're finally gonna see you try, huh?"

Lucy shrugged. She wasn't sure what she'd do or say to Dallas Winston when she saw him—if she saw him. As much as she wanted to, she knew it was probably a bad idea to smack Dallas Winston across his smug face. She didn't know if he had any boundaries, and since he stood at nearly a foot higher than she did, she wasn't itching to find out if he would hit a woman. It was best, she presumed, not to take any chances. She would stick to humiliating him with her words. It was much more fun that way.

"He needs someone to put him in his place," Lucy said. "I guess it's gotta be me."

"It's gotta be somebody. Why you?"

She tried to come up with an answer, but she couldn't. Tim had one prepared for her already.

"It's 'cause you like him," he said.

Lucy felt her chest turn pink underneath her blouse.

"I loathe him," she said.

"You love him?"

"No, _loathe_. It means _hate_."

Tim breathed what seemed to be a sigh of relief.

"Well, why didn't you just say that? Makes more sense. Ain't nobody ever said they loved Dally before."

And then, for the briefest flicker of a moment, Lucy found herself wondering if that was the problem with Dallas Winston. Was that why he destroyed everything he touched? Was that why he meddled in Soda and Jane's business? Was he trying to get someone to tell him to stop? She knew what that felt like… it was exactly what she had wanted from Sadie in her room earlier that day.

She stopped that train of thought as soon as it tried to connect herself to Dallas Winston. They were nothing alike. Lucy cared about other people, and Dallas Winston was purely selfish and narcissistic. She could ruin things, but at least she knew how to fix them. Dallas Winston, as far as she could tell, never even cared to figure out how to fix anything he broke.

"Say, if you ain't hot for Dally, there's gotta be somebody who does it for you," Tim said. Lucy felt an unwelcome chill go down her spine. She didn't want to take this long walk at all, much less with Tim Shepard, who amused himself by asking her questions about boys. This very well might be the oddest day of her life. She wanted to turn around and act like she'd forgotten something important back at her house, but after figuring that Tim wasn't bad company on a walk (No one was brave enough to tangle with him, except for maybe Dallas Winston, who was nowhere to be seen.), she decided she would walk on. She had to defend Jane, after all, especially if she wanted Sadie to forgive her for being such a hypocrite.

"That's none of your business," Lucy said. "We hardly know each other."

"If it's none of my business," Tim said, "then it must be one of the guys in your outfit. Let's see… can't be Darrel; he's too old for you. Can't be Ponyboy, he's too young. How 'bout Sodapop? All the girls like Sodapop." He sounded somewhat bitter about that one.

"Can't be Sodapop," Lucy said, then hated herself for helping Tim's little guessing game along. "He's out of bounds for me."

"How come?"

"That's not my story to tell."

Tim laughed, slightly sinister. Lucy supposed he couldn't help it, what with the way he grew up and all. She figured it was enough to make anyone something of a villain.

"You turned down Johnny," he said. Then, he narrowed his eyes, confused about the realization he'd just come to.

"Oh, no," he said. "You don't mean to say you've got a thing for Mathews."

"I never said anything like that."

"You don't need to, sweetheart. I figured it out by my lonesome. And now, you listen here, and you listen good. We don't know each other real well, and Carrie's probably told you enough about me to make you hate me, anyway."

Lucy made no reply. She didn't need to. Tim knew the truth, and it didn't bother him. A girl like Lucy Bennet, who dressed the part of a greaser but could never really be one, didn't need to know him. Once a girl like that made up her mind about who he was, that was it. He could only hope, for ole Dally's sake, she would go a little easier on him.

"You gotta stay away from Two-Bit," Tim said. "You can be his buddy, but you can't be his girl."

Lucy felt that familiar bubbling of wrath inside her again. She was becoming so ill of everyone telling her what to do, especially what to do with Two-Bit. Sadie told her to stay away. Dallas Winston told her to stay away. And now, Tim Shepard, whom she would have called a virtual stranger not one hour earlier, was telling her to stay away. What did they know that she didn't? It didn't matter. Lucy knew herself, and she had a good feeling about Two-Bit. They were just telling her to stay away to make her angry. That had to be it.

"Why couldn't I be?" she finally asked.

"Don't you know?"

"I know Dally tried to send Two-Bit to jail for something he did."

Tim looked more confused now, like Lucy was making up stories.

"What? That's not… you don't know what happened between Mathews and Dally's kid sister?"

Lucy furrowed her brow. She hadn't heard much talk of Violet Winston before this week, and all of a sudden, she seemed to be the key to solving almost everything. Why was she such a secret? What had happened between her and Two-Bit that everyone was so afraid to talk about?

"I never heard anything about that."

"Well, I guess Dally can't prove nothin', and it wouldn't matter if he could," Tim said. "Mathews didn't do anything you shouldn't do. He just hit on her when he was drunk, and Dally got real angry. Beat the shit outta him and wouldn't let anybody see Violet after that. Too scared somebody else would try something with her."

Lucy was far away, but Tim kept talking. Her blood thrummed loudly in her ears as she was consumed with horrible thoughts. She knew that Two-Bit had been with a lot of girls. She knew that if they were ever to get together, she would be far from his first or his fifth or probably even his fifteenth. But she never pictured Two-Bit trying to pick up Dally's little sister—Dally's little sister, who was just sixteen now and was probably fifteen then. She decided not to believe Tim Shepard. It was true that she barely knew him, and she would have liked to think she knew Two-Bit quite well after hanging around him for more than three years. He would have said something if it were true. She thought him to be an honest guy, and he would have said something because she wanted him to.

"Tell ya what," Tim said. "If any one of my friends tried to pick up on Angela or Carrie, I'd have to kill 'em. Surprised Two-Bit's still walkin' around, if you wanna know the truth."

Once more, Lucy didn't have the time to say anything. When she looked up, they were already at Buck Merril's front door. It was early enough in the day so that the house wasn't packed with people looking for a buzz, but there had to be something going on inside. Lucy took a deep breath as Tim knocked on the door. Dallas Winston was there. She could feel it in her bloodstream.

A moment or two later, Buck Merril came to the door, stinking of cigarette smoke and booze at 5:30 in the evening. Lucy wanted to roll her eyes, but she was a bit afraid of Buck. She didn't know what his boundaries were, either, but she had to imagine he wasn't above getting into a brawl with a woman. He lowered his cigarette from where his two front teeth would have been, coughed, and asked them, "What're you doin' here?"

"Dally's been stealin' my hubcaps one by one," Tim said. "Think he knows he's gotta pay."

But Buck ignored Tim and went straight for Lucy. He pointed his cigarette at her, and she felt herself panic (then felt embarrassed for panicking).

"You Lucy?" he asked.

"Um, yeah," she managed. This really was the oddest day of her life. When she thought about it, perhaps it wasn't the biggest stretch in the world that Tim Shepard would know her name and a thing or two about her. She was a friend of Carrie's, after all, and Tim had to talk to Carrie every now and then. But Buck Merril? Who would have mentioned her to him?

"If you're Lucy, he's upstairs," Buck said. "He thought you might be coming around."

"Why the hell would he think that?"

"I don't ask questions. I just help him out."

Tim opened his mouth to remind Buck why he was there, but Buck waved his hand in Tim's direction, as though to dismiss him.

"Shepard, I heard you before," he said. "Dally ain't got time to fight you. He wants to see her."

Lucy felt her chest turn pink again. She hated that feeling, and she especially hated that she was feeling it at the mention of Dallas Winston's name.

"Why does he want to see me?" she asked.

"I told you, I don't know. You wanna get your asses in here, or do you want to stand on the porch all night?"

Tim grumbled something that Lucy couldn't quite here, but he led the way inside. The smell was even worse now that there were fewer people in the house. Lucy wondered how a guy like Dallas Winston, who seemed to give a damn about his appearance, could stand to live in a dingy rat hole like this one. She shook her head as though to jostle him out of her thoughts, and perhaps it would have worked, had he not come downstairs in that very second. When Dally and Lucy made eye contact, Lucy could have sworn Dally looked a little nervous to see her there. She felt flustered but nipped it in the bud. She was here to tangle words with Dallas Winston, not bed sheets.

"Found your Lucy," Buck said.

"She ain't my Lucy," Dally said and made his way toward her. "She says she don't wanna be."

"I don't," Lucy said.

"Then what the hell are you doin' here?" His eyes were fixed to hers, and she felt like she was floating out of her own body. She couldn't explain why. It had to be the rage.

"I'm here to kick your ass," Tim piped up from the background.

Dally tore his eyes away from Lucy for less than a second.

"Shut up, Tim."

Tim rolled his eyes, and Dally fixed his on Lucy once more.

"You gonna answer or what?" Dally asked, almost playful. "What're you doin' here?"

As she fought off another blush, Lucy said, "I'm here to ask you what you think you're doing, breaking up Soda and Jane like that."

Suddenly, Dally's face did something it almost never did. It softened. He looked like he was almost remorseful about something, but it very quickly didn't matter. Their moment was interrupted by Buck Merril's terrible laugh.

"Jane?" he asked. "Steve Randle's little sister? Blonde chick who steals from guys to buy her clothes? Don't blame Curtis for dumpin' her. Ole Dally didn't have to work real hard to get him to do it."

Both Lucy and Dally ignored Buck. He didn't matter as much as the two of them, and they knew it.

"You don't get it," Dally muttered. "You don't fucking get it."

"See, that's exactly it," Lucy said. "I think I do get it. Sadie tried to tell me I didn't get it, either, but I think I'm seeing clearly."

Dally tried to respond, but Buck interrupted them again.

"Curtis's ugly twin sister is mixed up in this, too?" Buck was cracking himself up. "Always thought it was funny how the girl got to be the ugly one."

To the surprise of none, that was enough for Lucy. She grabbed Dallas Winston by his shirt and dragged him outside. It wasn't until several hours later she realized she wasn't forcing his hand. She was half his size, and he could have twisted out of that hold before she even had him in it. It took several hours before she realized he had gone outside with her because he wanted to.


	10. Chapter 10

Once they were outside, Lucy lightly shoved Dally backward. He allowed himself to stumble a little, smirking as she tried to rail against him. Maybe she couldn't kick his ass, but she was the only girl brave enough to try. He had to admit he found it funny.

"You're just _awful_!" Lucy shouted. "Every time I think you're gonna be less than awful, you just do something that makes you more _awful_!"

"Oh, yeah?" Dally asked, then immediately wished he'd had anything better to say.

"Yeah! You ask me to sit with you when I'm already on a date with your friend, and then, without even telling me, you get up and leave! I wondered where you were, but I guess now I know. You were off telling Steve about Jane and Soda."

"Maybe I was."

"Why would you _do _a thing like that? And how do you manage to destroy everything you touch in less than one damn day?"

She would never admit it, but there was a small part of her that admired how much damage Dallas Winston could do in a short period of time. His ethos was admittedly impressive. It was chaotic, but it was an ethos nonetheless. At least he cared about something, even if it was destruction and aggression.

"Hey, you don't get it," Dally said. "You think you're real smart, and maybe you are. But you don't get the way things work out here. I had to tell Steve about Jane. I didn't mean to upset her. I wasn't even thinking about her."

"That's a real nice thing to say to one of her friends. Of course, you don't seem to care much about people's friends, do you?"

She tried to tear away from him, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back. In truth, it wasn't a tight pull, but in that moment, it felt much stronger, like Lucy couldn't resist it even if she tried. Of course, she hadn't been trying, but she didn't know that.

"I don't know what the hell you keep goin' on about," Dally said, "but whatever it is, it ain't the truth."

"And why should I assume you'd be telling me the truth?"

Dally didn't say anything. He knew she had a point. He lied, stole, and cheated all the time. It was what he had to do to get by when he was a kid, and these were habits he hadn't quite broken. He wasn't even close to breaking them because he'd never tried. It wasn't that Lucy Bennet made him want to try. It was that her presence—grating, boorish, and above all, arrogant—made him stop and think of whether everyone was right about him. Everybody else let Dally go unchecked for fear he'd hand their asses to them, or worse. Lucy wasn't afraid of that. She wasn't afraid of that, and it drove him crazy.

"You know I'm right," Lucy added.

"See, there you go again," Dally said. "Always thinkin' you're right just 'cause somebody told you a long time ago they thought you was smart. Lemme tell you something, kid. You might do good in school, but you ain't the kind of smart you need to be if you're gonna live out here. You know nothin'."

"And what is it that I need to know?"

"You could start by askin' real questions. None of this..." he waved his hand as though he was looking for the right word to say.

"None of this _philosophy _bullshit Pony's always goin' on about, too," he said. "C'mon. You know. There's real questions, and you want real answers. Ask 'em. Ask me."

Lucy took a deep breath. Though she loathed admitting it, Dally was right. There were real questions about the real people she spent her days with, and she wanted the real answers. She never thought anyone would give them to her. In that moment, as she looked into his eyes, something told her that Dallas Winston was going to tell her the truth. It was a look she'd seen on his face only once before, with Johnny. If he was looking at her the same way he looked at Johnny, she knew, if only for these short minutes, that she could trust him. After the fact, she could go right back to hating him with all her might. But in this moment, she could trust him. She had to. He was the only one who could tell her what she wanted to know.

She sucked in her breath and then let it out slowly. Her first question was the easiest for her to ask.

"Why did you tell Steve about Jane and Soda?"

Dally took a step backward. He'd realized how close he was standing to Lucy in that moment and figured she probably didn't care for it.

"When you mentioned you had a thing for Two-Bit, I kinda lost it," he said. "I ain't jealous, so don't go tellin' your friends I am."

Lucy shrugged her shoulders. She wasn't even sure how many friends she had to talk to in the next few days—maybe none at all.

"Then why'd you lose it?" she asked.

"I remembered the way he hung 'round my sister," Dally said. "It was more than a year ago now. We were down at Jay's, and Two-Bit comes in, drunk as hell. Starts talking just dirty enough to my kid sister, like he forgets who she is or somethin'. I take him out back and kick the shit out of him."

The blood thrummed in Lucy's eardrums again. She could tell by the look on his face. It hadn't changed. Dallas Winston was telling her the truth. The boys were dirty, and she knew that. She also knew they were generally civil around sisters and cousins, like when the Randles' cousin came to visit in the not-so-distant past. Two-Bit had broken the agreement. If Dally kicked the shit out of him, he was only doing what he thought was his job.

"He doesn't remember what happened," Dally said. "Hell, he didn't even remember when he came to the next morning. Probably thought he got into it with somebody else."

Lucy's blue eyes shifted to the ground. All Dally wanted was for her to look at him again. She had such nice eyes, after all.

"Is that why your sister never comes around?" Lucy asked. "You're afraid somebody else is going to talk dirty to her?"

"I ain't afraid of anything, so you get that straight. Violet doesn't come around 'cause she don't want to. She never felt too welcome in that crowd of yours. Guess she was different."

Lucy knew the feeling, but she wasn't going to admit it out loud. Dallas Winston might have been telling her of his truths. That didn't mean she could trust him with hers.

"I'm sorry," Lucy said. "I never knew her."

Dally nodded. "Too bad. I think she'd kinda like you. You're different, too."

"How do you mean?"

Dally pulled a cigarette out of the carton in his back pocket and simpered mischievously at Lucy as he lit up. Her heart began to beat very fast—too fast—but she chocked it up to average nerves.

"That's one of them philosophy questions," he said. "I told you. You can only ask me real questions. Those, I can answer."

Lucy exhaled softly. Dally was just happy to see her eyes again as she formed her next question.

"So, you were still angry with Two-Bit for hitting on your sister," she said. "And you told Steve that somebody was trying to make it with his sister… for what? Revenge?"

Dally shook his head.

"Naw. Just thought he'd wanna know. I'd wanna know if my best friend was trying to make it with my sister behind my back. It seems like the kind of thing a buddy should do for a buddy."

Lucy snorted. She was going to get there.

"I didn't know Soda would dump Jane right then and there," Dally said. "I didn't mean to upset the kid. I was only thinkin' about Steve, and how if I was Steve, I'd wanna know."

Lucy almost said that he owed Jane an apology, but she knew that would never happen. She settled for asking him to talk to Soda about getting back together with Jane, now that Steve knew everything.

"It ain't my job to fix other people's problems," Dally said.

"It is when you made the problems happen in the first place."

"They made the problems. I sped 'em up."

If Dallas Winston said one more intelligent thing that day, Lucy was sure she'd implode. She shook her head and tried to continue with the inquisition.

"Last question," Lucy said.

"I don't believe you, but all right."

She took a deep breath, for this was the one answer she didn't want to receive. It would change her stance on too many people and too many things. If Tim Shepard had told the truth earlier, how was she ever going to look at Two-Bit the same way? How could she go right on hating Dallas Winston if he turned out to be more than a no-count hood? It scared her, but she knew she had to ask. Otherwise, she'd never know, and knowing something was better than being kept in the dark.

"Tim told me that the last time you went to jail, you know, for busting the school windows," Lucy said, "you weren't the one who did it. He said you took the fall for Two-Bit."

"That's not a question, Bennet."

"Is that true? Did you take the fall for Two-Bit?"

Dally exhaled and was quiet for a moment. He thought he was done telling this story. How could Little Miss Smarter-Than-You have missed the details on this one? It seemed everybody knew the truth. She was just too caught up in her stories to see anything that was going on in front of her.

"Yeah, I did."

Lucy's eyes nearly popped out of her skull. His expression still hadn't changed. Tim Shepard had been telling the truth. Dallas Winston was telling the truth now.

The worst part was that Two-Bit had been lying to her.

"Oh no," Lucy murmured, but Dally ignored it.

"He was walkin' home one night and thought it'd be a fun thing to do," Dally explained, laughing bitterly to himself. "Next morning, cops figured it was me. Can't say I blame 'em, but they got it wrong. I coulda told 'em it was Two-Bit, I guess, but I didn't. Just confessed and took the sentence without battin' an eye."

"Why would you do that?"

Dally took a long drag of cigarette and eyed Lucy through the smoke. She was real pretty, but he liked it better when she wasn't playing dumb.

"I knew you had more questions," he said.

"You gonna answer them?"

"Yeah, but only because you look cute."

Lucy rolled her eyes. She wouldn't let on, but it was flattering to hear that she looked cute, even if the compliment was coming from Dallas Winston's mouth.

"I know how much his kid sister needs him around," Dally said. "Their old lady's busy workin' most nights. She can't always help the kid out. She needs Two-Bit. Violet don't need me. The old man won't even let me near her anymore. Figured I'd take the fall for him since somebody needs him out and about, but nobody needs me."

He didn't even feel sorry for himself about it. It was just a fact of life, like how he'd never finish school, and he'd never make it with Cherry Valance. Of course, these days, he wanted Cherry Valance less and less. He wasn't sure she could match him, and it was starting to matter.

"I don't even know what to say," Lucy said, and it was true. Everything she thought she knew about the people in her life shifted. It wasn't a complete shift—just a little to the left. Dally hadn't gone to jail only to protect Two-Bit. He'd taken the fall to protect _Katie. _Lucy looked down at her shoes and tried to say something, anything, but Dallas Winston beat her to it.

"Lemme say somethin', then," he said. He hadn't planned on saying it that day, or maybe for as long as he lived, but it felt like the right time. "Lemme tell you something about yourself."

"Oh, I forgot," she said. "You're an expert."

"You know what? I am. You really do think you're better and smarter than everybody else. I know you're not. And it doesn't matter if you're better. Nobody cares. Nobody cares 'cept you, and if you stopped making such a big deal about it, maybe you'd stop caring so much, too."

"I need to be smart if I'm going to go to college and do well there."

"You got that already. You know how to be that kind of smart. But as soon as you act like you know everything about the way the world works, people get real angry. And you don't want that. If you want that, you end up like me."

If she cared only an ounce more about him, Lucy would have told Dally that no one who knew that much about himself was beyond hope. He didn't have to be alone if he recognized the way he could act. But she said nothing. She couldn't dignify him.

"You're real loud, you know that?" he said. "You always say one thing and then mean another, like how you think I'm a no-count hood, then you chase after me."

She opened her mouth to object, but he wouldn't let her.

"You're always pickin' on everybody but never on yourself," he pressed on. "You ain't got a clue how things work out here. You just know what goes on in your books that you stay in at night to read. You think you're learnin' by doin' all that reading, but you ain't. You learn by puttin' the book down and sayin' yes when somebody asks you to go out."

Had it been another day, Lucy probably would have called Dally out on his assumption that it was a girl's job to say yes any time a guy asked her for a date. She could tell, strangely enough, that wasn't all he meant.

"And you know what?" he asked, more to himself than to Lucy. "None of it matters. None of it fuckin' matters. You can go on being loud and thinkin' you're so great, and it doesn't fuckin' matter because I can't get you _the fuck _outta my head."

Lucy's heart just about stopped beating. It was the last thing she expected to hear come from Dallas Winston about anybody, much less about her. When her heart finally started beating again, she wondered if he knew she couldn't get him out of her head, either.

"What are you trying to say?" she said. She hated how childish she must have sounded.

"Well, if you're so fuckin' smart, you tell me," Dally said. "I'm sayin', and it pisses me off to say it, that I kinda like you a little bit."

She should have seen it coming, but she didn't. Did she like him? No, of course not. It didn't matter that he'd taken the fall for Two-Bit to protect Katie, a girl he didn't know very well. It didn't matter that he, the unfeeling bastard who was too hard to love, stood there and told her that he might like her. She could never feel anything but cold toward him. That was the way of the world.

"What?" she asked.

"Don't make me say it again," Dally said. "I kinda like you. And there's nothin' I can do about it. I've tried."

She shuddered to think of the girls he must have been with in the past couple of weeks to forget about her. For as much as she hated to picture herself as Dallas Winston's girl, it made her even angrier to picture him with anyone else. What did that mean? She dismissed it.

"And since there's nothin' I can do about it," he said, "you wanna go out with me?"

Lucy's palms turned into fists, and this time, she felt it. She didn't care. She dug her heels into the dirt below her and opened her mouth to scream at Dallas Winston, just as Sadie had screamed at her not two hours before.

"You think that's what you've earned?" Lucy shouted. "You think after I stand here and listen to you insult me that I'll go out with you?"

"You're not gettin' it," Dally said. "You're still not gettin' it."

"I get it plenty! And I'm never going out with a boy who says awful things about me to my face!"

"I should say 'em! Somebody's gotta! All your friends are always walkin' around, scared as shit to tell you what they really think of you. I've heard Lilly talk about you, and you know what she says?"

"No."

"She says you go around judgin' people like it's your job. And you ain't got the right, kid. You might live her, but you ain't from here. You ain't from here, and it shows."

Lucy paused. That was always her Achilles heel, and Dallas Winston had found it. _Dallas Winston _had found the thing that made her most anxious about living in Tulsa. She wasn't from there. She didn't belong in that neighborhood, and she sure as hell didn't belong in Sadie's group of friends. Lucy may have loved her friends, but she couldn't see a thing from their points of view. No matter how hard she tried, she'd always be different. She'd always have things they didn't. And she hated herself for it.

"But it don't matter to me," Dally said. His voice was quieter now. "It don't matter. I still can't stop thinkin' about you, Bennet, and it's drivin' me crazy."

Lucy steeled herself. She wanted to yell at him more than anything. Something stopped her when they locked eyes again. She'd never noticed how sincere his eyes could be. They were almost nice to look at.

"I'm flattered that you'd think of asking me out," she said. Her voice was slow and purposeful, as though she was trying to convince herself of something. "But I don't think I can… I can't go out with you."

She thought she heard Dally ask her to come back, but it didn't matter. Tim was still waiting to hand his ass to him, and she had to go home. She had to see Sadie and apologize to her. She had to check on Jane. She had to forget that Two-Bit tried to make a move on Dallas Winston's kid sister because one bad thing didn't turn a whole person into a villain. Most of all, she had to forget that Dallas Winston thought he liked her a little bit. That was too much for one day.

* * *

The next day at school, Lucy asked Sadie and Jane to meet her in Jane's supply closet of refuge. She wasn't surprised when they showed. No matter how mad Sadie could get at Lucy, she'd always be there when she called. That was the kind of best friend she was. Lucy only hoped she could learn to be that kind of best friend to Sadie, too. Once they were all there, Lucy told them what she'd heard about Dally and Two-Bit and Dally's kid sister. Jane looked surprised, but Sadie just nodded. All this time, she'd known.

"How come you didn't tell me?" Lucy asked. She wasn't accusing Sadie of anything. She was only curious.

"Darry told me I shouldn't tell anyone," Sadie said. "I didn't want to upset him by telling anybody, even you. I shouldn't have even known. Dally didn't mean for anyone else to hear when he was telling Darry about what happened at Jay's, and Two-Bit didn't mean for anyone else to hear when he was telling Darry about the windows."

"How come you heard, then?" Jane asked.

"Small house. Soda works a lot, and Pony's so far into his own head that he can't hear what's going on around him. I end up learning a lot of things I'm not meant to."

Sadie shot Lucy a look, but Lucy didn't know what it was supposed to mean. At least, she told herself she didn't know what it was supposed to mean.

"I don't know what to think anymore," Lucy said. "I always thought it was easy. I know people aren't all bad or all good, but I always thought Dallas Winston was that one exception. But now… now, I don't know what to think. He gave up sixty days of his life for _Katie_, and he hardly even knows her."

Neither Sadie nor Jane looked surprised.

"We've been trying to tell you, Lucy," Jane said. "You don't know Dally as well as you think you do. He's not all bad. He's done a lot of good things. And you like him."

"I don't like him," Lucy said. "I turned him down when he asked me out yesterday night. But he confuses me, and I don't like to be confused."

"You like him," Jane insisted. "You've liked him for weeks."

"I'd say it's been longer than that," Sadie said.

Lucy's eyes nearly popped out of her skull again. She was so tired of being surprised by things. She wanted her life to go back to the way it was, when she thought she knew everything. It wasn't until yesterday night that she realized she knew nothing.

"What?" she asked.

"Yeah," Sadie said. "Jane, don't you remember a year ago when we were all at my house, and Lucy said something about being thirsty? Dally got up and got her a glass of water without even sayin' a word."

"That doesn't prove I like him," Lucy said, trying not to sound indignant.

"Naw, but you talked about it for two weeks after the fact. That kind of sealed the deal for me."

When Sadie mentioned the glass of water, Lucy felt a chill down her spine. She had forgotten about it, but now, it was all she could see and feel in her memory. The way her hand had brushed over his… his hands weren't as cold as she'd always imagined them. She had imagined them before? She threw the thoughts out of her head and focused on the matter at hand.

"I can assure you that I'm not interested in Dallas Winston," Lucy said. "I'm just confused by what he stands for 'cause it seems to be more than just himself. But the nerve of him to stand there and insult me like that!"

"It didn't sound like insults just to insult you," Sadie said. "I think he was trying to make a point."

An awkward silence fell between Lucy and Sadie. They hadn't talked about their argument from the evening before, and though Lucy planned to pull her aside and say something, she hadn't had the chance.

"Regardless," she said. She fixed her eyes on Jane, who looked better than the day before, but only slightly. "He didn't mean to hurt you, Jane. He was just acting rashly. He remembered what happened between Two-Bit and Violet, and he couldn't see past that. He didn't mean to hurt you."

Jane smiled a little. Lucy, again, was confused. Was there a secret language she didn't know?

"I know he didn't mean to hurt me," Jane said. "That's not why I was cryin'. I was cryin' because of Soda. Dally didn't have to tell Steve, and Steve didn't have to get upset with Soda, but…"

"But Soda didn't have to break up with you to save face with Steve. And that's the real problem," Sadie finished, muttering a few more choice words for her brother all the same.

Jane nodded. "I'm sorry, Sadie. I don't want to be mad at him. You know how much I…"

She looked to Lucy, undoubtedly fearing she would be judged if she finished the sentence the way she wanted to. Thankfully, Lucy noticed her friend's apprehension, so she waved her hand aside in dismissal of her typical judgment and arrogance.

"Go on," Lucy said. "Just say it. I won't judge you."

That was when Jane Randle smiled—really smiled—for the first time in days.

"You know how much I love him," she said. "I guess we just weren't meant to be."

"Don't say that," Lucy said, much to the surprise of both Sadie and Jane. "Something's gonna work out. I know it. You just need to sit down and talk to each other."

Jane looked at Sadie, puzzled. Sadie merely shrugged. She didn't know for sure what had brought on the change in Lucy's heart that morning, but she had her suspicions.

"Are you sure you're feeling OK, Lucy?" Jane asked. "You usually wouldn't encourage me to go after a boy like this."

"It doesn't matter what I'd usually do. Hell, it doesn't matter what I'd do at all. It matters what you do. And you want to work things out with Soda, don't you?"

Jane nodded. "I really do."

"Then you're gonna work it out, and I'm gonna help you."

"But Lucy…"

"Doesn't matter. I want to help my friends be themselves. I don't want to turn them into me."

Sadie stared at Lucy, not necessarily surprised, but certainly impressed. She always knew Lucy had it in her to check her arrogance. She simply never figured it would happen so soon.

"How are you going to help?" Jane said. "It's between me and Soda. And Steve, I guess. Not you."

"I'll just be there for you," Lucy said. "That's all I need to be, right?"

Jane nodded. "Thank you, Lucy. For listening."

"Of course."

The bell for first period rang, and Jane went to take off for her first class. When Lucy and Sadie weren't moving, she wrinkled her nose in confusion.

"Don't you have classes to get to?" she asked. "Sadie, you're in my first period. We're gonna be late."

Lucy and Sadie shared a look. That was one thing they assumed they would always be able to do—communicate silently between them. Boyfriends could come and go, but Sadie had to be forever.

"You go on, Jane," Sadie said. "I'm gonna stay back and talk to Lucy for a bit."

"Lucy's gonna be late to first period?" Jane asked. "This is the strangest day of my life."

"You don't know the half of it," Lucy said. "See you at lunch, Jane."

Jane waved goodbye at the other two girls and headed over to her first class down the hall. When the hallway was almost cleared, Lucy and Sadie snuck into the supply closet, closing the door behind them. They made no waste of time.

"I'm sorry," Lucy blurted.

"No, I'm sorry," Sadie said.

"Can it. You got nothing to be sorry about. I'm the one who goes around acting like I know better than everyone else. I don't. As it turns out, I really don't know much of anything at all."

"You know plenty. You just… you know different things than the rest of us."

"Yeah, I know."

"But it's real nice of you to be so supportive of Jane right now. I was with her all last night, and she's awful sad. She really does love Soda. I could wring his neck for dumping her just to save face with Steve. I know how much he likes her. It shouldn't matter what Steve thinks. Besides, he'll come around. He's not really a bad guy."

Lucy bit her lip at the mention of _a bad guy_. She didn't know what made a good guy or a bad guy anymore. She'd thought Dallas Winston was nothing but awful, but anyone who would do time to help out his buddy and his buddy's little sister couldn't be all bad. It was easier to think of him when she thought he was nothing but useless trouble. Now, when her thoughts wandered to him, she kept thinking of the way he turned a little red when he told her he couldn't get her out of his head. Why was she thinking of him that way? She didn't like him. He confused her, and she was interested in him as a case study of human behavior. But she didn't like him.

"I'm gonna be there to help Jane," Lucy said. "And I'm sorry for what I said about you and Johnny. I was thinking it over last night before I went to sleep, and I get it. I get why it's a good idea for the two of you to see where things go."

Sadie looked a little sad. Her first date with Johnny was later that day, and she wasn't dreading it or looking forward to it. She wanted to do it. She was just worried that it wouldn't work out (and a little worried that it would).

"It makes sense for us to get together," she told Lucy the same thing she'd been repeating to herself since the night Johnny asked her out. "He needs to get out of that house, and I need to give Darry a break."

"That's not all I meant. I meant… you could make a good couple, you and Johnny. You're right. He's a good friend, and sometimes, a good friend can be a good love. Plus, he read Dickinson for you, and I know how much Dickinson means to you."

Sadie blushed a little. She never would have said anything in front of Lucy or her brothers out of fear they would tease her for it, but when she was in junior high, she'd had quite a crush on Johnny. There was something in his eyes and something in the way he talked to Ponyboy about the clouds that she'd never quite been able to forget. Maybe, that night, it would come back to her. It was all she could hope for.

"And I'm not gonna judge any of you for liking boys anymore," Lucy said. "I get it. It might not be my thing, but it doesn't mean I have to be mean to any of you for liking it."

Sadie leaned up against the wall, arms folded across her chest and a familiar glint in her eye. Lucy narrowed her eyes, getting frustrated when she really only wanted to remain calm.

"Now, don't give me that look," she said. "I know what that look means. That looks means you think you know more about me than I do, and I won't have it."

"I do know more about you than you do," Sadie said matter-of-factly. "It's my job as the best friend of a girl who can't get her nose out of a book and into the real world. I see things, and I know. And are you _sure _liking boys ain't your thing?"

"Quite sure."

"Then just play this little game for me."

"Sadie…"

"Dallas Winston."

Regrettably, Lucy felt her chest and cheeks turn bright pink. Sadie pointed at her, playful but accusatory. Lucy put up her dukes in opposition.

"I knew it!" Sadie shouted.

"I know what I look like!" Lucy shouted over her, but Sadie's giggles drowned her out. "I know I'm blushing! And it's not because I like him. It's because you all keep asking me so many questions about him that I can't…"

"It's no use! I know it, and you know it! You like him!"

"It would be a disaster if I did. Even if he's not just a villain, it's not worth it to like him. He's never loved anyone in his life. I'd just be…"

Slowly, Sadie stopped smiling. She saw the expression on Lucy's face, and her heart broke for her. Lucy wasn't feigning a thing. She was hurting, and she was disappointed.

"Hey, hey, hey," Sadie tried. "It's OK, Lucy. We don't have to talk about it anymore if you don't want."

Lucy nodded. She kept thinking back to the way he looked the night before. She hadn't noticed what perfect eyes he had, and now, every time she closed hers, they were all she could see. She hated it, and she wanted to cry. But she wouldn't. As much as she wanted to try to open herself up to the world around her, she still wasn't going to be that girl who cried over a boy who couldn't love her if he tried.

"I don't think I can talk about it," Lucy said. "It's all a little bit much since last night. When you yelled at me for being… the way that I am… and then when he did the same thing… I just didn't know how well he knew me, Sadie. I didn't know he'd been listening to me all these years. And I didn't think I…"

Before Lucy could say anything else, Sadie swept her up into a tight hug. They didn't have to talk about it. They didn't have to really talk about anything. After four years of being best friends, they always just knew.

"I really am sorry, Sadie," Lucy said.

"I know, honey. You OK?"

"I'm OK."

Of course, that was all a lie. She wasn't OK, and she hadn't been OK since the night before. Lucy didn't know how to name what she was feeling. All she knew was that she'd never felt it before, she was afraid of it, and she didn't understand it. And for Lucy Bennet, there were no two things worse than fear and ignorance. She held Sadie tighter in that supply closet, wondering if anything could send her back to the way she felt not one month earlier—certain of everything, not thinking anything of Dallas Winston, not even when she heard his name or saw him around. Nothing helped. She was stuck feeling awkward and confused, caught in a loop where all she could see was that pair of strangely gorgeous eyes. All she could hear was that deep, almost handsome growl.

_I kinda like you a little bit_.

It was a comedy of errors at its worst, and she was sure she wanted out.


	11. Chapter 11

A few days had passed since Dallas Winston told Lucy Bennet that he couldn't get her out of his head. Since then, Lucy had done a surprisingly decent job of keeping him out of hers. She was focused on getting Jane back together with Sodapop. Alas, their efforts had amounted to very little. She and Jane spent a few hours convincing Steve that his best friend dating his sister would actually be a good thing ("Consider this," Lucy had said. "If things work out between Jane and Soda, he could become your brother, but for real."). While they'd eventually managed to sway him over to Jane's side, they hadn't been able to break through to Soda. Lucy and Sadie had spent night after night in the Curtis family room, trying to get him to see that it didn't matter what Steve wanted if he wanted to be with Jane. Besides, Steve understood now. What was holding him back?

"Come off it," Soda had said. "I know it doesn't matter what Steve thinks of me and Jane. Least, now I do. Doesn't matter what Steve thinks, but after what I did to Jane, ain't no way she's gonna take me back."

Sadie swore at him, and Lucy thought of how Dallas Winston had stood out there in front of Buck's place and told her how he really felt about her. Did he expect her to come back around and fall in love with him after he'd been so brash and so rude? He couldn't. She decided to put him out of her mind. He had no business being there when she was trying to help Jane.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and she was walking home from the library with one of her favorite old books in her hand. On her way back to her house, she was stunned to run into Dallas Winston, walking in the opposite direction. She wanted to pretend like she hadn't seen him, but he stopped her in her tracks.

"Why, would you look at that," he said, his voice smoother than ever. "How ya doin', Bennet?"

"Just fine," she said coldly. "I'm on my way home from…"

He looked down at the small bundle in her arms and answered for her: "The library."

"Is that a problem?"

"No problem. Just what I expected outta you."

He grabbed the book out of her hands, and she was shocked by how little she objected to his touch. She wanted to put him out of her mind. Unfortunately, putting him out of her mind proved exceptionally difficult when he was standing right there. Lucy took a deep breath and then felt her heart skip a beat. She was learning to go weak for the smell of leather and cigarettes.

"_The Mill on the Floss_," he read the title of the book. "That about teeth?"

"Of course not," Lucy said. "It's a Victorian tragedy of family and provincial life, and it's one of my favorite books ever written."

"I don't know what half of those words mean, but you sure sound pretty sayin' em."

She resisted her blush (or at least made the attempt). Dally smirked and walked beside her, not wanting to let her escape this time.

"You gonna ask me more questions, kid?" he probed.

"I thought we were done with the inquisition," she said.

"Oh, I'm never gonna be done answering questions outta you. It's a real rush. Ask me another question. Ask me where I'm goin'."

"Fine. Where are you going?"

"I'm goin' to see my sister."

Lucy's eyes widened with curiosity. The linchpin had a face, after all.

"Your sister?" she repeated. "Today? But I thought your father…"

"Never lets me get anywhere near that house or her, yeah, yeah, it's all true," Dally said. "But the old man's outta town for… I don't know, some crock of shit thing or another. Left Violet all by herself. That means I get to see her. Probably the only time I'll get to see her for months."

"Well, I'm real happy for you, but I…"

"You should come with me."

She stopped in her tracks again and looked him up and down as if he were out of his mind.

"You want me to come with you to visit your sister? The sister you never see and who's never met me?"

Dally nodded.

"Wouldn't that be a little strange for her?" Lucy asked.

_Not to mention for me_, she thought.

Dally put his arm around Lucy and guided her in the direction he was going. She didn't put up a fight. Something inside her told her that it was a good idea to go with Dallas Winston that afternoon. He looked too… _happy_ … for something to be really wrong.

"She'll dig," he said. "Besides, I told you I think she'd like you. I wanna see if I'm right."

"Dally, I don't know if…"

"You do know. If you didn't, you wouldn't be walking the same way as me right now."

Lucy looked down at her shoes. Sure enough, she was walking in lockstep with Dallas Winston, on their way to meet up with his faceless sister, the linchpin in the conflict between Dally and Two-Bit. She had to admit she was a little nervous to meet someone of such personal importance. Even without a face, Violet Winston felt like a kind of local celebrity, at least in Lucy's view.

"Fine," Lucy said. "But you should know. This has nothing to do with you. I'm an intellectual, and I'm naturally curious. That's all."

Dally let out a stiff laugh, which Lucy almost smiled at. It was such a distinct sound—one she could listen to over and over, just to try to figure out how he did it. It wasn't that she was attracted to his laugh. She was simply intrigued. That was it. That was all.

"Sure thing, kid," he said.

* * *

Dallas Winston's former home looked precisely as Lucy would have imagined it. The outside was unkempt, and the front lawn was littered with bottles of beer. The storm door was half off its hinges, and the roof was shot to hell. Lucy sucked in her breath as she made her way up the broken concrete steps. If what her father said in his lectures was true, and houses were a metaphor for the mind, she was even more worried about Dallas Winston's father than she ever had been.

Dally didn't knock on the door. Instead, he pulled back what remained of the storm door and shouted through the wood of the front.

"Violet! Open the hell up!"

Seconds later, they heard footsteps from inside the house, and the door made a loud creaking sound when a tall, willowy brunette answered the door. Lucy stood amazed. She had the same hard expression on her face that Dally wore most of the time. In fact, the only time he hadn't worn it lately was when he spoke to Lucy, which she felt free to ignore. When the door swung open, all the dogs in the neighborhood barked loudly. Lucy couldn't help but identify with the mutts.

"There you are," Violet said. "I was startin' to think you weren't comin'."

"Hey, I'm a man of my word," Dally said, almost smiling at her. "Can I come in?"

"_You _can," she said. Her dark eyes flickered to Lucy, puzzled to see a stranger on her front porch. "I don't know who the hell this is."

"Her name's Lucy," Dally said. "She's real annoying, but she's hung up on me. And I think you might sorta like her if you got to know her."

Violet looked Lucy up and down. Lucy was careful not to smile, as she was rather certain that smiling was a sign of weakness to a Winston. After what felt like three hours, Violet smirked (just like Dally) and opened the door to the two of them.

"She looks all right," Violet said. "Come on in."

Dally stepped aside and let Lucy enter the house first, and she was surprised to discover that it was even worse on the inside. There was hardly any furniture. The walls were dirty, and the windows were streaked as though they hadn't been cleaned in years. She was beginning to think maybe they hadn't been. Though most of the house was painted in an off-white hue, Lucy couldn't help but feel like everything around her was dark gray. She took a deep breath and nearly choked on the mustiness. She hated to say it, but it made sense that this was where Dallas Winston grew up.

It was a funny little visual, Dallas Winston growing up. The truth was that Lucy didn't think much of what he must have been like as a small kid. She always figured he just sort of came up from the ground, almost fully formed, like Botticelli's _Venus_, only angry, not soft and beautiful. Lucy had moved to Tulsa two months before her fifteenth birthday, and Dally moved back to Tulsa from New York City at the same time—just over two months before he turned fifteen, too (Their birthdays were exactly two weeks apart, with Lucy just slightly older.). She'd never known another version of Dally—just a cold, tough, mean teenaged boy with a few soft spots here and there. Was she one of his soft spots? She blushed at the thought before letting it go. It didn't do to dwell on something like that, particularly not with a boy who didn't know how to love anything or anybody.

But before she could control herself, she was thinking about what Dally's mother must have been like. Two-Bit had mentioned that her name was also Violet, which must have been more common when she was born. Lucy had never met a Violet in real life, apart from Dallas Winston's younger sister that very day. Apart from her name, Lucy didn't know anything about her. She'd heard Dally make mention of his mother one time in the years she'd lived in their neighborhood. Ponyboy was looking through a book of John William Waterhouse's paintings (Darry didn't know he'd checked it out from the library and probably would have thrown a conniption if he did. Waterhouse painted many a bare breast.), and he stopped on_ The Lady of Shalott_, or the one where the pretty woman pushes herself out onto the water. Ponyboy stared at the painting for a long time, trying to figure out what Waterhouse meant by it (He hadn't read Tennyson yet, which Lucy guided him to shortly thereafter.), when Dally came up and pointed at the woman in the painting.

"She looks like my mom," he'd said, and that was the end of it. No one dared ask him another question. Lucy didn't know how she'd died, but if she looked like the Lady of Shalott, it wasn't hard to guess. Her heart broke for Dally and Violet just thinking about it.

Lucy wondered. Did Dally's mother love him? Did she love her daughter? She must have loved them a little bit, but then again, that might have been Lucy's privilege trying to persuade her to stay away from horrible thoughts. It seemed strange to Lucy that a mother could have children and not love them—just leave them behind the way she guessed Violet Winston the First must have done to her children. Then again, Lucy was privileged. Her parents thought long and hard before they decided to have her. She was certain the same couldn't be said of Dallas or Violet Winston.

But did she ever have a laugh with her kids? Did she ever hold them when they were afraid? Did they ever become afraid? Surely, they must have. Every child is afraid of something when the lights go out, even Dallas Winston, she presumed. What did he do when he was a little boy, and something wasn't right? Did he try to tell his mother, and did she wave her hand and tell him to go away? Is that why he turned so hard and unfeeling? Because no one was there when he was afraid, and it was easier to learn not to be afraid of anything? Lucy was asking herself too many questions, and she could feel herself beginning to foster resentment for someone she had never known.

She took a few more steps around the living room (which could hardly be called a living room, as it didn't look like anyone had truly lived in that house for decades), and this time, she wondered what it would be like to keep a house with Dallas Winston—as his wife. She would make sure their walls weren't dirty and gray, of course. They would make sure to clean up around the place at least once a week. Probably on Sunday afternoons and into the early evening, after they were finished making breakfast for each other and, eventually, for their own children. She wouldn't be the one to do all the cooking, and he'd put up with it since he'd know what he was getting into by marrying Lucy Bennet and not someone who thought _The Feminine Mystique _was a load of bull. When they cleaned up around the house, they'd listen to the radio to pass the time. Maybe he wouldn't like the music, but she would. And he'd like that she liked it. Then, afterward, they'd have dinner together. It wouldn't be fancy, but it would be theirs. And they'd bicker while they made it—a good-natured bicker, one their children could admire and understand.

Her skin went hot and cold at the same time, and she felt like she stopped breathing.

_What was that? _

She'd never thought about anyone that way, let alone Dallas Winston, who couldn't swing a life like that if a gun was pointed at his temple. He'd probably take the bullet before taking anybody's vows. She had to be out of her mind. A guy tells her he can't get her out of his head, and all of a sudden, she's married to him and having his babies in her imagination. She had to have lost her mind. The problem was that she wasn't sure where she had left it, so she couldn't retrace her steps even if she wanted to.

_If she wanted to?_ Of course she wanted to. She was sick of feeling so strangely about Dallas Winston, particularly when he was standing so near to her. She snapped out of her daydreams—_daydreams about Dallas Winston_—and looked at him. He wasn't paying a lick of attention to her. He was walking around the living room, taking in the place he hadn't stepped foot in since… he couldn't remember when.

"You've really kept up with the place, haven't ya, Violet?" Dally asked, looking through the streaky window.

"You're one to talk," Violet said. "Your room's a trash hole. Same as you left it. I don't get time to clean this place. I'm workin' more often than I'm not."

"Where are you working?" Lucy asked, polite and curious. When Dally and Violet looked at her like she was from another planet, she knew it must have been the wrong question or the wrong tone. Possibly the wrong everything. She wanted to disappear into the wooden floor, never to emerge again.

"I'm a waitress," Violet said. "Doesn't matter where."

Lucy nodded. This was definitely Dally's kid sister—playing her information close to the vest and jeering at even the most courteous of questions. How could Dally have ever thought Lucy and Violet would get along?

"You girls wanna get somethin' to eat?" he asked. "I'm about starved."

"_You're _about starved?" Lucy and Violet asked at the same time.

The girls looked at each other, amused and bemused at the same time. Violet nodded as though she were seeing this girl for the first time all over again.

"I see what you mean, Dally," she said. "This one eat like a horse, too?"

"Two horses," Lucy answered for him. "At least, that's what my friends say."

Violet nodded again, moving closer to Lucy and wrapping her long, skinny arm around her shoulders.

"He's right, ya know," she said. "I think I could get to likin' ya, if you eat anything like I do."

It was a bizarre way to begin an unlikely friendship, and yet, all three of them were sure it would work. They headed out the door and toward Jay's, per Violet's suggestion.

* * *

"You sure that's where you wanna go, V?" Dally asked on their way in.

The question caught Lucy off guard. She'd never heard Dallas Winston show this much concern for a person—not even Johnny. She chocked it up to narcissism. Sibling relationships were narcissistic more often than they weren't. At least, that was what she'd written her last English paper about.

"Don't bother me none," she said. "Why? It doesn't bother you, does it?"

"No." He said it, but it was clearly a lie.

"Thank goodness, then."

Violet turned to Lucy, a familiar gleam in her eye. Lucy would have smiled, but she was afraid Violet Winston could pummel her. As another girl, it was within her rights.

"Has he gone soft without me?" Violet asked.

Lucy shook her head. "He's as tough as ever."

Violet snorted a little. She knew better than to believe this girl. If Dally was bringing around a girl as pretty as this one, he had to be getting soft. Dally never brought girls around—just mentioned them halfheartedly when he wrote to Violet every now and then. But she'd never heard a word about this Lucy. She figured if she was meeting her, she must be a pretty big deal. She'd go easy on her.

They happened upon the front door of Jay's, and Violet led them inside. Dally mumbled something about what happened the last time. Violet either didn't hear him or pretended not to hear him. She didn't want to be defined by that night with Two-Bit, and she wasn't going to let Dally try to do that. It wasn't like him. Meanwhile, Lucy's eyes scanned the place for Two-Bit, just to make sure that a repeat of the last time didn't happen… just to make sure she wouldn't have to answer to a crush she felt guilty for ever having had. Fortunately, he was nowhere to be seen.

Unfortunately, however, there were a couple of familiar faces tucked in a booth near the back of the restaurant. When Lucy locked eyes with Sodapop Curtis from across the room, she wanted to bolt. He smiled at her, but she couldn't help but feel vitriol, as he hadn't yet reached out to Jane, nor did it appear he intended to. Her heart really sank when she saw the person sitting across from Soda in that booth. Cherry Valance was tucked back there, too, drinking a strawberry milkshake and acting like this was her territory. From behind her, Lucy heard Dally chuckling.

"So, Red's really playin' it fast and loose," he said. "First the Dingo, then the Curtis place, now Jay's. She's gonna have to change her clothes if she ain't careful."

Lucy's skin crawled with… it couldn't be envy … when Dally said _change her clothes_. She pictured him with Cherry Valance and wanted, albeit briefly, to die. She didn't like the image of herself as Dallas Winston's girl (despite her fantasies—not fantasies, fantasies were positive—of being married to him in the house earlier that day), but she really didn't like the thought of Cherry Valance becoming his girl, either. It seemed patently wrong, like claiming two and two made five or that Charlotte Brontë wrote _Wuthering Heights_. She shook her head and tried to erase all the images she'd created in those few seconds. Sometimes, she had to curse her imagination.

Soda ambled over to them, smiling a little too much, as though to apologize to Lucy for stiffing Jane the way he did. He invited them to join him and Cherry, and though Lucy tried to reject the offer, Violet Winston wholeheartedly accepted.

"Sure thing, man," she said, her voice nearly as deep and gruff as Dally's. "I gotta see if that Cherry Valance is the real deal."

They walked toward the back of the restaurant and slid into the booth, which was a little tight for five full-grown people. Lucy was the shortest of them by quite a bit at five-foot-three, but she was hardly skinny, so it didn't make a difference in the tightness of that space. Cherry almost ended up sitting next to Dally, but he pulled on Lucy's sleeve and carefully positioned her next to him. It wasn't anything against Red. It was that he was going to have it out with Lucy Bennet today if it was the last thing he did (and with the amount of guys out there out for his blood, it very well could be). She was going to admit how she felt about him. First step was sitting close to her, making himself impossible to resist. Violet caught onto what he was doing and snickered a little under her breath. Dally shot her a look that unmistakably said, "Fuck off." She did, but only for a moment or two.

"So, Red," Dally said, keeping an eye on Lucy in his periphery. "You really think it's a good idea to be sittin' here? What'll everybody say? Will you lose your spot on that cheerleading squad of yours? Will you get written out of your daddy's will?"

Cherry rolled her eyes and took a long sip of her milkshake. Finally, she looked at Dally and said, "There's no rules. I can be wherever I want to be, and I wanted to see Soda. He asked me over."

Lucy wanted to go into a blind rage. What kind of cad breaks up with a girl who loves him only to immediately go out on a date with a Soc who would undoubtedly break his heart? She wanted to smack that silly signature grin off of Soda's face—not because she resented him, but because she loved him and thought she knew what was good for him. Nevertheless, she stayed put. She figured if she yelled at Soda in the middle of a restaurant (really, if she yelled at Soda at all), her friends would be upset with her again. She didn't want that. She loved them too much for them to go through that all over again.

"Sure bounce back fast," Dally said to Soda.

He turned to look at Violet.

"He'd been dating Jane Randle before Steve found out about them," Dally explained.

"You're the one who told Steve," Soda reminded him.

"And you're the one who dumped Jane. Didn't need to do that, buddy."

Lucy stared up at Dally, impressed he'd even say a thing like that. Then again, maybe it wasn't a stretch from the guy who went to jail so his buddy could take care of his sister … from the guy who seemed almost giddy to see his own sister after what felt like decades of not seeing her at all. She was suddenly very moved to reach out and touch him, but she refrained. This was not the place. Arguably, there would never be a place for it at all.

"This ain't a date, anyway," Soda said. "I asked Cherry over here to talk about Jane, not to forget about her."

Lucy frowned. That seemed far-fetched to her, but she'd play along. Soda was Sadie's twin brother, so she had to humor him for her sake.

Cherry nodded. "It's true."

This time, Violet snickered under her breath. She still hated to admit it, but Dally was right. She was already taking a liking to Violet. She could be as blunt as Lucy wanted to be but couldn't afford.

"Oh, please," she said. "No girl's ever gone out with Soda 'as a friend.' Everybody wants to get in his pants."

Soda turned an ugly shade of white, and Cherry turned as red as the hair on her head.

"Good to see you again, Violet," Soda murmured. "See you haven't changed."

"You know it."

"Well, I know what I know," Cherry said, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. It was the first time Lucy had seen Cherry Valance look out of place. In that moment, she realized that must have been why she never could like her, no matter how much feminist literature she caught her reading under her magazines. Cherry always found a way to make herself a part of a group. Lucy, try as she did, was always on the outside of the outside. As much as she pretended like she preferred it that way, she didn't. She couldn't. It was too cold.

"And Soda asked me over here to get my advice on what to do about Jane," Cherry said. "I'm not looking for anything else."

She looked over at Dally as though to suggest she might want that something from _him _instead, but he didn't notice. He was too busy staring at Lucy's hair, wondering how it looked so pretty without a hint of hairspray. The look wasn't, however, lost on Lucy. She made eye contact with Cherry and communicated her exhaustion rather flawlessly. Cherry swallowed and broke her gaze with the other side of the booth very quickly.

"Well, I think that's absurd," Lucy said. She could have sworn she heard Dally laugh a little, but she couldn't be sure. She was too focused on what she was going to say to Cherry and Soda. She might have to control her tongue in front of her group of friends, but they weren't here. Now, she could say whatever she wanted, as long as it meant she got to help Jane in the end.

"C'mon, Lucy," Soda pleaded. "You know how I feel about Jane."

"Yeah, you see, I thought I did," Lucy said. "And then I didn't anymore. Sadie and I sat with you for hours telling you how to handle things with her. Now, all of a sudden, you need another girl's opinion?"

"Lucy, I swear, that's all we were here for," Cherry said, being sincere with Lucy Bennet for the first time since she'd known her. "Soda told me about what you and Sadie tried to say. Didn't you, Soda?"

"Course I did. Thought it'd be a good idea to hear it from somebody who wasn't my own twin and her best friend just to be sure."

Lucy shrugged. For the most part, she believed Cherry and Soda. She'd spent a lot of time with Soda over the years, and she figured he was mostly an honest, honorable guy (Of course, who knew what an honorable guy was anymore?). Hell, it was his commitment to Steve that inspired him to break it off with Jane in the first place. And yet, there was something that didn't sit right with her. Something strange was happening behind the scenes. She could feel it in her bones. Maybe it wasn't here, precisely, but it was somewhere nearby.

"Huh," she said, disconnected from the conversation as she tried to chase her bad feeling. "Well, Cherry, what did you tell him?"

"Same as you, I suppose," Cherry said. "He's gotta talk to Jane. If he talks to her and apologizes, she's bound to take him back. I can see how much she loves him. I'd hate to see that go to waste."

Violet snickered again. Lucy couldn't help but admire her absolute lack of a social filter.

"Of course you can see how much Jane Randle loves Soda," she said. "You didn't sit with her at lunch all those years. She never talked about anything else."

Soda looked incredulous. "Really?"

"Soda, if you had a fan club, it would have been Jane and Jane only. Glory, but how long did it take you to see that?"

Soda didn't say anything. He supposed he had always known how Jane felt about him, and in truth, he'd probably always felt a little something toward her. When he'd started seeing Sandy, thoughts of Jane faded into the background, and he supposed he felt a little guilty about that. There were times he thought that if he'd always been with Jane, who loved him dearly, he'd never have gotten hurt in love at all. Maybe that was why he was afraid to apologize to her now. If she turned him down—Jane Randle, who had always loved him, even when he didn't see her standing there—then he'd know he wasn't worth that kind of love.

"She'll take you back in a heartbeat," Violet said. "If I ever knew Jane, she's just about dyin' to take you back."

Soda was quiet for a moment. Lucy wished that were the end of it, but Cherry pressed on.

"Have you gotten another boy's perspective?" she asked. Her eyes flickered over to Dally, who was bored enough to drop dead in the booth.

"Don't look at me, Red," he said. "I think he's a dumbass. He knows. I ain't got more to say than that."

Cherry sighed impatiently. She didn't know what else she should have expected. Lucy, on the other hand, was proud of his response. It was everything she wanted to say but couldn't get away with—not when she was under Sadie's probation.

"What about your brothers?" Cherry asked. "How about Two-Bit? Have you talked to him?"

Before Soda could answer Cherry's question, Lucy made a big deal about standing up and announcing that she had to go to the bathroom. She figured if she did something big and bizarre, maybe Cherry would forget that she ever mentioned Two-Bit and would talk about her instead. As Lucy walked toward the bathroom, she could have sworn she saw relief on Dally's face and on Violet's. They played tough—they _were _tough—but even the tough had their soft spots. Lucy would know. She thought of Sadie, Jane, and Lilly and smiled a little to herself.

Once Lucy was in the bathroom, Cherry turned back to Dally with a sneaky grin.

"Do you still think she has nice eyes?" she asked, almost taunting him.

Admittedly, Cherry assumed Dally would say no. She expected him to have moved on. Maybe he got back with Sylvia. Maybe he was going to make another move on her. She was not prepared for the next thing that would come out of his mouth. No one in the booth was, perhaps not even Dallas Winston himself.

"She's the cutest girl I've ever met," he said.

The whole booth went silent and almost numb with shock. They'd never heard Dally talk like that before. They'd heard him talk dirty to and about pretty girls, but this wasn't dirty. When he called Lucy Bennet the prettiest girl he'd seen in a long time, it sounded like he meant it. And in that moment, no one in that booth could think of anything more terrifying.

But when Lucy came back from the bathroom and took her seat next to Dally again, and he winked at her in appreciation, _that _was more terrifying. It no longer _seemed_ like he meant what he said. He just meant it.


	12. Chapter 12

Lucy tried to forget about her awkward run-in with Cherry and Soda; tried to forget that Dallas Winston took her to meet his kid sister. Above all, she tried to forget that he had looked at her like she was someone he wanted to look at. When he gave her those eyes, she didn't know what to think, but it felt out of place. She didn't want to think of how she was starting to look forward to the sight of his smirk and the sound of his sardonic laugh. No, it wasn't that she was looking forward to it. It was an instant gut reaction, she assumed, like Pavlov's dog. When he smirked or laughed that way, she knew she was ready to get into a tangle of wits. There was nothing she liked better than a tangle of wits. That had proven particularly true over the past few days, as she wanted to keep her mind off the fact that Two-Bit had lied to her about what really landed Dally in jail the last time. She hadn't seen Two-Bit in awhile, which was probably for the best. If Lucy knew herself, she would end up screaming at him, and she didn't want to scream at Two-Bit. She wanted him to be a good guy, and in her heart, she knew he still was. Everyone was entitled to mistakes, and everyone was entitled to a good deed. Everyone, that was, except for Dallas Winston. It didn't make any sense for Dallas Winston to do anything noble, and yet, there he was, giving up two months of his life for Two-Bit and Katie Mathews. Lucy almost couldn't believe how gray the world looked now that she was really looking at it.

When she happened on her own front porch later that evening, she was surprised to find Sadie and Johnny waiting for her in her driveway. Lucy's heart stopped when she saw them. They looked worse for the wear, and Lucy could tell that Sadie had been crying. She ran through all the worst-case scenarios in her head. The Socs who tried to drown Ponyboy over the summer might have come back after him. No, Sadie wouldn't have showed up at Lucy's house for that. She'd be with Darry and Soda. Was it Jane? Was she worse off now? No, Sadie would have just called her on the phone for that, and Johnny wouldn't have been involved. Then, suddenly, she knew. Of course.

"Lilly," Lucy muttered under her breath and hastened toward her friends in the driveway.

Sadie looked up when she heard Lucy coming, almost smiling to see her there. Despite the fact that what she and Johnny had to say would surely rattle Lucy's cage, she was still glad to see her there. Somehow, Lucy would be able to take care of it. She had to.

"Hey, Lucy," Sadie said.

"What are you doing here?" Lucy asked, trying to keep her voice steady. She couldn't let on that she was terrified. Sadie needed her to be the tough one now.

"We were out," Johnny said, alluding to their first date. "Then Katie came by and told us somethin'."

"What did she tell you?"

Sadie exhaled loudly, like she'd been holding it in for hours. In truth, she'd only been holding it in for about forty-five minutes, but it felt like eternity.

"Lilly spent the night at the Mathews place last night," Sadie said. "And when Katie woke up, Lilly wasn't in her room. She went into Two-Bit's room to ask him if he'd seen her, and, well… looks like he had."

Lucy wrinkled her nose. She understood what Sadie was insinuating, but she didn't want it to be true. Lilly was fifteen… she wouldn't be sixteen until February… and Two-Bit… how did he not remember Dally beating him to a pulp when he tried to pick up on Violet?

"Lilly was asleep in Two-Bit's room," Johnny said, his voice quiet yet firm.

"Katie could only assume," Sadie added.

Lucy hadn't even been this angry when Dallas Winston stared her down at the Dingo or when she found out that Two-Bit had lied to her about the last time Dally had gone to jail. It wasn't that Lilly wasn't allowed to like or chase after boys if she wanted, nor was it that Lucy still had a thing for Two-Bit (She wasn't sure she could have a thing for him after he'd lied to her like that and for no discernible reason.). It was the idea that Two-Bit, as a man of eighteen who had always respected his kid sister's closest friend, wouldn't turn her away. Lucy didn't want to believe that Two-Bit could be so selfish, but the pattern was too clear to ignore it now.

"I guess it's not uncommon," Sadie said. "Lilly's almost sixteen, and Two-Bit's only been eighteen for… what? Four months now? It's not the worst age difference in the world."

"It doesn't matter," Lucy said immediately. "He's eighteen. He should know better. And for it to be Lilly…"

She thought back to one of her father's lectures. This one wasn't on an Austen novel, but rather, on _Jane Eyre_. Her father was of the unpopular opinion that Mr. Rochester was an awful love interest, and yet, he understood why Jane Eyre would love him. She'd never known love (especially love of a stronger, older man) in her life, so when Mr. Rochester so much as showed her basic human kindness, she fell in love with him. And who could blame her? As a person, Jane Eyre deserved love, and she would do what it took to find it—or anything that vaguely resembled it.

Was that how Lilly felt? Was that why she seemed to like so many boys all the time? Surely it was why her focus seemed to stop and hover around Two-Bit, who was just _that much _older, charming, and strong. Lucy cursed herself for not having recognized it before. She could spot it so easily in her favorite old novels, but when faced with it in her real life, it eluded her. She wanted nothing more than to find Lilly and apologize to her for thinking her interest in boys was frivolous. Lilly wasn't being flippant. She needed this, and how dare Lucy not see it earlier?

"Do you know where she is?" Lucy asked, directly to Johnny. He shook his head.

"Haven't seen her since yesterday," he said. "Katie said she might have gone to see Darry. See what he could do."

Lucy looked over at Sadie with hope, but Sadie was shaking her head, too.

"She's not there," she said, her voice low and slow. "We came over here because we know Lilly knows she can count on you, but your mom said she hadn't seen her, either."

"She could be with Steve and Jane," Johnny offered, but it didn't seem realistic.

"We could check there," Lucy said, not wanting to give up hope. She hated to think of Lilly wandering the neighborhood by herself, feeling the way she must have been feeling. "Have you checked in with Carrie? With the Shepards?"

Sadie and Johnny both shook their heads. Lucy balled her hands into fists—on purpose this time. She took a deep breath and prepared herself.

"OK," she said. "You two check with Jane and Steve. I'll see what's going on with the Shepards. We'll meet back here in an hour. Dig it?"

"Sure thing," Johnny said. He held Lucy's eye for a moment or two before he spoke again. "Thanks, Lucy."

Lucy nodded back at Johnny. He didn't need to say anything more. They both understood what they needed to do now.

"You're welcome," she said. "We'll find her. We'll see what really happened."

Sadie looked at Lucy curiously, wondering what she meant by "what really happened." Of course, she had no time to ask, as Lucy tore off on her heels in search of Lilly Cade.

* * *

When Lucy was halfway to the Shepards' place, she felt someone come up from behind her and brush her arm. Her spine shivered to discover that she had run into Dallas Winston for the second time that day. She didn't have time to be annoyed. It was far too important to find Lilly and asked her what must have really happened at the Mathews house the night before.

"Small world, huh?" Dally asked as he came up beside her.

"Not small enough," Lucy said, trying to ignore him and focus on the task at hand. Unsurprisingly, he couldn't take the hint (or didn't care to, which was admittedly more likely) and walked faster to keep up with her quick pace.

"Hey, where you goin', anyway?" he asked. "Thought you lived in the other direction."

"I do. I've gotta see Shepard."

Dally laughed, and Lucy dismissed the way the sound made her chest feel.

"_You _gotta see Shepard? Don't tell me you're cheatin' on me, honey."

"Look, I know we've got a bantering thing going on lately, but this just really isn't a good time. If you could just leave me alone…"

"I'd love to, but I'm goin' to see Shepard, too. He's gotta hand me my ass some time, and you kept him from it before."

Lucy grumbled something under her breath, and the two of them walked in silence for a little while. It was going so well that Lucy figured it might stay this way until they got to where they were going. Naturally, Dallas Winston disturbed the peace.

"You never answered my question," he said. "Why do you gotta see Shepard?"

"You never asked that."

"Yeah, well, you knew what I meant. Why do you gotta see him?"

Briefly, Lucy considered her options. She could try to keep it a secret from Dally, since it would probably enrage him to learn that Two-Bit probably pulled the same thing on Johnny's kid sister that he tried to pull on Violet a year earlier. But what did it matter? The gang was small. He'd find out eventually—probably within ten minutes, if they were really headed to the same place. She took a long, deep breath and began.

"Nobody can find Lilly," she said.

Dally's face returned to its usual coldness.

"Where's Johnny?" he asked.

"He's looking for her, too. With Sadie. They went to check with Steve and Jane."

"What she run off for? The old man come at her with his smoke again?"

Lucy's breath flew out of her lungs. That must have been what all the marks on Lilly's left forearm were. She'd never been sure, and she'd been too afraid to ask. Oh, she needed to find Lilly and tell her how sorry she was… how blind she'd been… how she was going to be better for her now that she understood. Find Lilly. Find Lilly. That was all that mattered now. Find Lilly.

"Katie Mathews found her sleeping in Two-Bit's room this morning," Lucy said. "So, when she'd been found out, she ran."

Dally muttered a few choice words for Two-Bit, not unlike the ones Sadie had been muttering for Soda lately. As much as he hated rules, this one was the only one it didn't bug him to follow: You don't talk dirty to your buddies' families just for the hell of it. With anyone else, it was fine and well, but buddies' families were different. Almost seemed like hitting on your buddy if you did it wrong, and that wasn't the goal. But what happened between Two-Bit and Lilly Cade (or might have happened, as no one, not even Dallas Winston, was ready to accept it as reality) was the lowest a guy could go. None of the guys ever wanted to hurt Johnny. Didn't they understand that hurting Lilly was the same thing?

"You think she could be at Shepard's?" Dally asked. "Seems like the last place I'd check."

"It _is _the last place we've checked. It's all we got left."

Dally didn't know what to say, so he said nothing. Just followed after Lucy Bennet, a little angry with himself. What was it about her that made him want to take a step back and let her lead the way? He never liked anyone to go in front of him; never liked anyone to get in his way. Yet, he kept on letting this _girl _do both. Of course, when he looked at her (really, when he spoke to her), it didn't really matter that she was a girl or that she was real pretty. She was just Bennet, tough as hell and not afraid of anything. He laughed on the inside. It was awfully difficult not to admire a girl barely higher than five feet who was walking down to Shepard's place without even looking a little nervous.

A minute or two passed, and something changed on Lucy's face. Her resolve had gradually transformed into a look of sorrow, maybe even guilt. Dally recognized it—not on Lucy Bennet, but on himself. It was the look he knew he'd had up in his room the night he pulled Ponyboy out of that fountain and kicked the shit out of Cherry Valance's (now former) boyfriend and all his friends. He remembered how Johnny thanked him for helping Pony while he was down and what he'd said after that.

"If you hadn't come by, I'd have killed that boy."

Dally must have thought about that one sentence everyday since Johnny said it. It wasn't that a kid could have died that night. One spoiled Soc off the streets would have been welcome for Dally. It was that _Johnny_ would have killed him, and he didn't want that for Johnny. He still hated to picture Johnny in jail, getting mean like he did. He was born a bastard and a son of a bitch, but he wasn't born mean. Some days, he almost felt like he didn't need to be mean. The feeling never lasted long. He could hear Lucy Bennet saying it didn't matter as long as he could feel it and pushed her imaginary voice out of his head. He looked at her face one more time. Yes, he knew that look. It was the look he had when Johnny needed help. And Bennet looked the same way for Johnny's sister.

He had questions, but he pushed those out of his head, too.

"I can't imagine how scared she must be feeling right now," Lucy said, surprising herself and Dally with how sensitive she sounded. "She's a tough kid, that Lilly, but she's so young. There's just so much she doesn't know…"

If it had been another day—another hour, even—Dally would have asked Lucy how much _she _knew about what Lilly was into. But it was this day and this hour, and something told him to shut the hell up and just listen. He was so quiet that Lucy didn't even recognize that he was listening.

"She thinks she knows so much," Lucy said. "I know how that sounds, coming from me, but I was worse at fifteen. I thought I knew everything then, too. Just call me Socrates now."

Dally made a face. He'd heard Ponyboy say that word before, but he'd never cared enough to figure out what it meant. Lucy saw his look and answered his unasked question.

"Socrates was a Greek philosopher," she said. "I know you don't care about this philosophy bullshit. But he says all he knows is that he knows nothing. And I guess… well, I guess I agree with it now."

"'All I know is that I know nothing,'" Dally tried it out. "Sounds right."

"Well, Lilly hasn't gotten there yet," Lucy said. "And now I'm worried she's gonna get there too fast. I know it doesn't sound like it makes sense, but…"

"No," Dally said. His firmness surprised both of them. "Makes sense to me, kid."

They walked the rest of the way in silence, but it didn't feel silent to either of them. They could have sworn they could hear the other's thoughts the whole way in.

* * *

Lucy's suspicion had been right. As soon as she and Dally happened on the Shepards' front porch, Lilly was sitting right there, next to Carrie, crying a little.

"For the last time, Lilly," Carrie said, her moralizing tone at its very peak. "If you wake up in a boy's bedroom, people are gonna assume one thing only. Don't you remember that song by The Everly Brothers from when we were kids?"

Lilly didn't respond to Carrie. When she looked up and saw Lucy coming toward her, she leapt off the porch and toward her.

"Lucy!" she said.

"Hey, Lil," Lucy said, trying to stay cool.

"How'd you know I'd be here? Figured this was the last place Johnny would check."

"It would have been. Johnny didn't send me. I came on my own."

Lilly looked over Lucy's shoulder and at Dally, who stood by on the lawn, waiting for Tim to come out the door and kick his ass. She giggled a little. Lucy couldn't help but smile. Even under duress, Lilly was still herself.

"Running into him was a coincidence," Lucy said. "And it really doesn't matter right now. This is about you. Something told me you'd be here."

"How?"

Carrie came off the porch to join Lilly and Lucy. When she did, Lucy looked her up and down.

"I heard what happened," she said, "and I figured you were in need of a good lecture. Nobody gives better lectures than Carrie."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Carrie asked.

"It means we all have our things, Carrie. Yours is deciding between what's right and what's wrong. Mine is not listening to my friends when they need me to listen to them."

She grabbed Lilly's hands in hers and compelled her to look her in the eye. Sheepishly, she did. Lilly wanted the lawn to open up underneath her and swallow her whole. Anything would have been better than another one of Carrie Shepard's (ironically) sanctimonious lectures or the possibility of going home and seeing Johnny or Katie or, worst of all, Two-Bit. But maybe it would be all right. If Lucy were going to take her back, maybe it would be all right.

"Look at me," Lucy said. "I'm sorry I didn't hear you before. I was selfish and dumb and… well, I'm a little too riled up to think of a third word right now, but when I do, I'll get back to you. I hear you now, and I want to take you home. Well, I wanna take you to see Darry, anyhow. He'll know what to do."

She wasn't really sure Darry ever knew what to do. He was only about two years older than she was, and before Mr. and Mrs. Curtis died, he'd just been a regular guy. Smart and a good friend, sure, but just a guy. Just a kid. It didn't matter. At fifteen, Lilly couldn't know that. For a fifteen-year-old kid, Lucy knew it was better to pretend Darry had all the answers.

"It's okay," Lilly said. "But Lucy, you gotta believe me. Nothing happened between me and Two-Bit. Katie didn't give me a chance to explain. Just told me I better get outta there before she busted somebody's head in. I never got a chance to explain. Nothing happened."

Lucy nodded over and over again.

"I believe you," she said. She needed to.

"Two-Bit and I talked last night in the family room after Katie fell asleep early, and I got bored. I fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up, I was in Two-Bit's bed, but I was alone. He never tried anything on me. I swear it."

Lucy was still nodding; still repeating, "I believe you." It was keeping her sane, almost as if the more times she said it, the more it would turn out to be true. She wanted to believe Lilly, but she wanted to hear it from Two-Bit, too. There were a lot of things she wanted to hear from Two-Bit, like why he'd lied to her about Dally. Of course if he'd lied to her about that, what made her think he would be honest about what happened (or didn't happen) with Lilly?

Of course he could be honest, she thought. Nobody's all truth or all bull. Everybody's got truth and lies mixed up inside of them, like how she and Sadie liked to put M&Ms in their popcorn. Almost everybody's got good and bad twisting around inside them, too. She turned to look for Dally, but he was gone, probably trying to kick Tim's ass before Tim could kick his.

"Can I take you back now?" Lucy asked. "Johnny's already real worried about you. I don't want to make him worry more."

Lilly nodded and took Lucy's hand as they started to move away from the Shepards' front lawn. Before they turned around and left, Lucy looked over her shoulder and right at Carrie.

"You wanna come with us?" she asked. "We're headed to the Curtis place, and I think Ponyboy's home."

Carrie didn't say anything. She just smiled and followed after the other girls. Lucy wasn't sure how she felt about condoning all these teen romances. But that day, as she walked to fetch Lilly with Dallas Winston at her side, she almost felt what it was like to see Ponyboy through Carrie's eyes and what it was like to see Sodapop through Jane's.

Almost. She'd still managed to keep her head screwed on tight enough so that he couldn't seep back in through the cracks. She was sure to be mindful of that.

* * *

The first thing Darry wanted to know (which scared the life out of Lilly) was whether or not there was a chance Two-Bit would have to marry Lilly when they tracked him down.

"I don't even know how we'd make that work," he thought aloud. "You're not eighteen, and your folks wouldn't sign off… we couldn't pin 'em down, you'd think."

"We don't need to get married," Lilly said, her voice surprisingly steady, given the pressure she was under. "Nothing happened."

"Lilly, honey, I wanna believe that. Trust me, I do. But Katie said…"

"Katie didn't see nothin'! She only thinks she did!"

Lucy jumped up from her spot on the couch (She took Sadie's regular seat, as she'd given her a rest so she could try to enjoy her date with Johnny.) and put her arm around Lilly. Her heart nearly shattered. Lilly may have been keeping her voice steady as could be, but her whole body was shaking.

"I believe her, Darry," Lucy said. "I think you should, too. Lilly wouldn't lie about something like this. She knows better."

Lilly nodded, and the look on her face reminded everyone in the room (including and especially Darry) how young they all really were. They were quiet for a long moment—so quiet that Lucy could hear the confused conversation in the back of the house between Ponyboy and Carrie.

"I kissed you 'cause neither of us had kissed anybody before! I didn't think you liked me!"

"What do you think I've been tryin' to tell you for _months_?"

"You haven't told me anything! You barely talk to me!"

"That's the point, dumbass!"

Lucy chuckled to herself, picturing the mental wrestling Carrie would undoubtedly put herself through later on account of calling someone (let alone Ponyboy) a dumbass. She quickly turned back to the conversation between Darry and Lilly. It wasn't amounting to much of a solution, but Lucy hoped it could serve as a kind of placebo until they could find Two-Bit.

"Look, Lilly, I know Two-Bit," Darry said. "He's a good guy, but he ain't a stranger to messin' things up. That's probably why he ran outta the house when Katie found you in his room, too. If something happened between you two, you don't gotta feel embarrassed about it. You don't gotta feel like you have to protect him, either. We just gotta make sure you're OK."

"But I _am _OK," Lilly pleaded. "The only thing that's not OK is that this is gonna spread. I know Katie better than any of you. She's mouthy. And I'll be…"

She had much more to say, but she didn't need to say it. Everyone already understood. The whispers when Sandy had moved to Florida were so loud. Lilly didn't want to be the next target, and Lucy didn't want that for her. Lilly turned to Lucy, still fighting back tears.

"It's no use," she said. "Even if Soda comes back with Two-Bit tonight, it don't matter. He can tell everybody he had me—brag about me like he bragged about the other girls. It don't matter that nothin' happened between us 'cause nobody's gonna believe me."

Her eyes wandered in Darry's direction, as though to communicate that she felt betrayed by his lack of trust in her. Lucy nodded, thinking that if she pretended to have the answers, Lilly would believe her.

"I believe you," Lucy said. "You're not ruined. Trust me. Do you trust me?"

Lilly nodded. It was all she could do. Besides, Lucy hadn't let her down before.

"I'm sorry I was always pushin' you to go out with Johnny," she said.

"That doesn't matter right now. We gotta take care of you. You need me to get you anything?"

"Time machine would be nice. You know how to build one of those?"

Lucy laughed a little. Her kingdom for a time machine. If only Lilly knew. If Lucy had a time machine, she would certainly go back to that night at the Dingo when she first stared Dallas Winston down. She would make sure she never looked him in the eye and never heard him tell Soda that he wasn't interested in her. Things would be so much easier if she hadn't looked at him. She wouldn't think of him all the time. He wouldn't be under her skin. She wouldn't be confused about what it meant to be a good person, what it meant to be a bad one.

How could Dallas Winston have taken the fall for his buddy and his kid sister? How could Two-Bit have lied to her about what happened? What was either of them trying to prove? She stopped herself before she could think of any more questions. She could drive herself out of her mind with questions, and perhaps she already had.

She thought of the story Sadie told about Lucy, Dally, and the glass of water. Now that Sadie had brought it up again, Lucy remembered how odd it felt when he just wordlessly handed over the glass, like he did kind and generous things everyday of his life, and no one should be surprised by this one. She ran her free hand over the hand Dally had brushed when he gave her the glass, and it came back to her. A flesh memory. Her skin tingled at the thought of touching him, like there was something dirty about handing someone a glass of water (Apart from, of course, a glass of water from a polluted well, but that wasn't the case.). She flexed her hand and shook it out, trying to rid her flesh of that memory—the memory of Dallas Winston's casual touch. It was no use. It was buried under her skin, and there was nothing she could do to claw it out.

There was a knock on the door, which pulled everyone out of their confusion for a minute or two. When Darry answered it, he and the girls were confused by what they saw on the front porch. Two-Bit awkwardly stood there, hands in his back pockets and eyes on his shoes (careful not to look at Lilly Cade), asking quietly if he could come in. This, however, was not what puzzled them. Soda was nowhere to be found. Two-Bit had come alone.

* * *

**A few notes on this story and this chapter, in particular: I made a mistake and deleted chapter one, and since I didn't want to delete the whole story and start again, I combined chapters one and two. It works better now, since chapters one and two bleed into each other quite seamlessly, and I like that Dally confronts Lucy in chapter ten, not chapter eleven. Additionally, never fear about this story's depiction of Two-Bit. He's fallible, of course, but he's not a villain. My goal is not to vilify a character I really like. That would be silly. Keep reading… I promise it shakes out pleasantly. I wouldn't be a good fluff writer if it didn't! **


	13. Chapter 13

Two-Bit, with a small cut above his left eye, stood on the Curtises' front porch and nodded at Darry, still careful not to look at Lilly or Lucy. He knew he'd be interrogated about Lilly first, but after that, it wouldn't be over. Lucy surely knew that he had lied to her about Dally, and he was itching to tell her why. The truth was that he didn't quite know. He looked up a little, making sure he could only see Darry.

"Can I come in?" he asked.

Darry took a step aside to make room.

"I think you better."

When Two-Bit stepped into the house, he finally took a look at Lilly. She looked like she might fall over, and he didn't blame her. It was only when she stood there in that living room, nervous as could be, that he noticed how young she really was. Was that how young Dally's kid sister had been a year earlier? Couldn't have been. Things were different then. Yes, that was it.

Lucy stepped in front of Lilly and glared at Two-Bit, forcing him to look her in the eye. Reluctantly, he did, and he almost winced when he saw that look. He'd seen it on her before, when she picked up a lead pipe at the DX and considered shattering a Soc kid's kneecaps for calling his girlfriend a bitch. There was that look again. Luckily for Two-Bit, there was no lead pipe in sight.

"You don't go near her," Lucy said. "Do you know what you've put her through?"

"I know, Lucy," he said. "Just let me talk to her."

"No. You say what you need to say to me. I'll tell Lilly."

"She's standin' right there. What's the difference?"

"It makes a difference to me, man."

Two-Bit took a small step back and furrowed his brow. He'd heard that line before, and not too long ago, at that. Once Lucy noticed the look on his face, he straightened back up. He didn't want her to know what he was thinking, and he was pretty sure she could read thoughts.

"Nothin' happened between me and Lilly," he said, almost as though he'd been practicing it for hours. "Katie fell asleep real early last night, and Lilly found me in the family room. We were talkin' for awhile, then she fell asleep. I picked her up and carried her to my room a little while later, but that was all. I didn't do nothin' I shouldn't have."

Lucy cocked her head to the side and looked at Two-Bit, trying to figure out if he could be telling her the truth. She despaired. For when she looked him in the eye, she felt nothing. She felt no indicator that he was telling the truth or lying to her. It wasn't like when she looked at Dallas Winston and could hear everything he was thinking and feeling—yes, Dallas Winston could feel, as she was quickly learning—without him needing to say a word. She couldn't get the same read on Two-Bit. When she thought about it, she couldn't get the same read on anyone else, not even Sadie. It was just Dallas Winston. Just Dally.

Two-Bit tried to step beyond Lucy and get at Lilly, but Lucy lunged forward, giving him that look again. She looked like herself, but she looked like someone else, too. How could he not have seen it earlier?

"Don't even think about it," she said, her voice deep and unwavering.

"Lucy, stop it," Lilly piped up from behind her. "I can talk to him if I want. It's not up to you."

Lucy sighed as she took a step to the side and, for the first time since he'd walked in, let Lilly have a look at Two-Bit. To her surprise, both of their faces softened when they saw one another. They didn't go near each other for fear Lucy or Darry (who stood in the corner in case one of Lucy's violent streaks kicked in) would pummel one of them, but it was clear they wanted to. It was the strangest thing Lucy had seen all day, except for her visions of being married to and keeping a house with Dallas Winston—with Dally. She thought back to _Pride and Prejudice_. Maybe Two-Bit was a Wickham. Maybe that was true. But maybe out here, in the real world, even Wickham could grow up. If he looked at a girl the way Two-Bit had just looked at Lilly, maybe anything could happen.

"Hi, Lilly."

"Hi, Two-Bit."

They stood there for what felt like forever. After it became clear they weren't going to say another word to each other (and that Lucy had calmed down enough not to beat Two-Bit to a pulp), Lucy cleared her throat and pulled on Two-Bit's arm.

"C'mon," she said. "We're going back outside."

"I thought you were gonna let me live."

"I am. At least, I'm pretty sure. I wanna ask you some questions."

* * *

They stood on the front porch, well aware that Lilly could hear (and wanted to hear) every word that they were saying. Lucy couldn't help but laugh a little to herself about that one. At this point, she had to recognize that Lucy wasn't trying to pick up on Two-Bit. When Lucy thought about it, she'd never really had a thing for him. It was nothing more than a disguise for… she still couldn't say.

"You know what I'm gonna ask, don't you?" she said.

"Might've heard you learned about something or other."

"Why would you lie about why Dally went to jail? You must have known I'd find out sooner or later."

Two-Bit shrugged. He had a number of different, albeit incomplete, answers.

"Lotta reasons," he said. "I was pretty drunk that night. Didn't know what I was sayin'. Still feelin' pretty guilty about what Dally did for me. Kinda feel like if I keep sayin' that's what happened, then it'll change history or somethin'. Katie knows what really happened, but she ain't too happy about it. Keep thinkin' if I change the story, then maybe she'll start to believe it, too. Maybe she'll start likin' her brother again."

Lucy nodded. Everything was making more sense to her lately. Good men could tell lies not because they were secretly bad men but because they wanted to be good—to leave behind the inevitably bad things they'd done. And bad men… maybe she didn't know any truly bad men. Impatient and impulsive, perhaps. But bad? She was no longer sure she could say so.

"You believe me about what happened with Lilly?" Two-Bit asked, a glimmer of hope in his voice.

Lucy looked at him and smiled one of those empty, tired smiles. She just wished for the day to be over and for everyone to forget where Lilly Cade had woken up that morning.

"I believe you," she said, partially because she needed to believe him and partially because she knew Lilly was still eavesdropping. The truth was that she had no idea whether Lilly or Two-Bit was telling the truth about the night before. But when she thought about it, it didn't particularly matter. No one would say another word about it. Lilly wouldn't have to worry about facing the same terrible whispers that followed Sandy's name around after she moved away. She thought back to another one of her father's lectures—this one on an old play called _The Country Wife_. At the end of the play, everybody went right on believing the lies that got them through the day, and maybe, her father supposed, that wasn't a bad thing. Maybe that's what counts—getting through the day. Maybe life didn't need to be _The Merchant of Venice _all the time: "Truth will out." Maybe the truth hurt for a reason.

"Hey, Lucy, if you don't mind," Two-Bit said, bringing her out of her literary thoughts for just a moment. "There's somethin' I think I wanna ask you."

Though she dreaded his question, Lucy told him he could ask it.

"You sure you ain't hot for Dally?"

* * *

The question echoed through Lucy's mind as she sat on the Curtises' couch, waiting for Sadie to come home from her date with Johnny. Soda had come back a little while earlier with a cut above his left eye, too, and he asked her if she wanted him to walk her home. She declined. If she was going to think about this- really think about it- she needed to wait on Sadie.

_You sure you ain't hot for Dally?_

She couldn't be attracted to Dallas Winston. She was interested in him as a case study of the human condition, but she wasn't interested in him as a potential date. She couldn't be. Since she became a teenager, she knew what she wanted in a man: Someone she found attractive, of course. But it had to be someone who was smart and strong. It had to be someone who'd put skin in the game to help out the people closest to him. It had to be someone who was brave. She wanted to find someone who made decisions because he wanted to make them, not because they were expected of him. She needed someone who could be considerate and never cloying. She needed to meet her match.

_Dear God_, she thought and almost had a laugh. _I've been so blind_.

When she and Dally first stared one another down at the Dingo, she hadn't been mad that he didn't want to sit with her. That fire wasn't wrath. It was attraction she could not yet narrate. When she couldn't stop staring at him through the Curtises' backdoor (and later, when she'd turned down his invitation for a date), it wasn't that she wasn't fond of him. It was that she _was_, and she was too afraid of what it would mean to own up to it. Part of her had agreed to go to Buck Merril's party to appease Lilly and Johnny, but another part—a much, much larger part, now that she could finally breathe and be honest with herself—went to that party because she wanted to see Dally. Even her brief crush on Two-Bit had been about Dally. She wanted to distract herself, and Two-Bit was a decent alternative. She'd left her date with Johnny to sit with Dally not because she couldn't think of a good excuse but because _she wanted to sit with Dally_, and she was disappointed when he abruptly took off because she enjoyed bickering with him. She was disappointed when she thought he'd ruined things for Jane because she liked him, and she wanted to believe he could be better than everyone assumed he could be. And the reason she'd been so willing to listen to her friends without assuming she always knew better was because _Dally had called her out on her arrogance_. He was a hood, but he wasn't a no-count hood. He was just a man, and she was falling in love with him.

But how could she fall in love with Dallas Winston? Weren't they too different? She thought on that for a moment and had a real laugh this time. When her nose was stuck in her studies, Lucy fancied herself the girl next door: calm, unassuming, and bookish. Now that she had taken a look around at the world she really lived in, she knew that wasn't true. She was nothing like that. Lucy Bennet was brazen, bossy, and clever as hell. Though she was small, she knew she could grind anyone who got in her way into a fine powder. She would have given her right arm to protect Lilly Cade not three hours earlier. Ultimately, she resorted to pacifism and kept her wrath in check, but it was still there. She was still audacious. She was not a fragile little girl, waiting for her peaceful poet to come along. In fact, she might lose her mind with one of those artsy guys in her father's classes. They never said anything that really mattered—never did anything that really mattered. Guys like that were posturing, she figured. Dallas Winston was a lot of things, but he was never phony. With him, what you saw was what you got. And Lucy, heaven help her, was falling in love with what she saw because she knew it so well.

Were he to ask her for another date, she would accept. Of course, after a series of rejections (including that most recent rejection, which Lucy only gave because she was afraid he would realize he wasn't interested), she was sure Dally would give up and move on to someone less complicated. She would have despaired for a moment, but she didn't have time. The door swung open, and Sadie walked in.

They held each other's gazes for a moment or two. Sadie tried to figure out what Lucy might have been saying to her, and then, she thought back to their conversation in the supply closet at school. She shot Lucy a sympathetic smile.

"Hi, honey," Sadie said. "You ready to talk about it now?"

Lucy nodded, feeling like a little girl and a grown woman all at once.

"Why didn't you tell me I was blind as a bat?"

Sadie's smile turned from sympathetic to a toothy grin. She took her seat next to Lucy on the couch and let out a tired laugh.

"Because it's much more fun to watch you not know somethin'. Now, come on. There's a lot I wanna hear."


	14. Chapter 14

It wasn't really necessary to call Jane over, what with Soda being in the back with Ponyboy and everything, but Sadie insisted on it, anyway. She and Jane had been taking imaginary bets about Lucy and Dally for weeks, and she'd be happy to hear what Lucy had figured out.

"Unbelievable," Jane said, smiling for the first time in hours. "I was startin' to think you'd never figure it out for yourself."

"I guess I always sort of knew it," Lucy said. "You don't think about a person that much without almost starting to like him."

She hung her head in shame and regret. No one could _like _Dallas Winston. _Like _was such a tepid word. Dallas Winston was the kind of guy you had to feel passionately about. And did she? Did she feel _passionately _about him? Judging by the way he rolled around in her thoughts and never did seem to stop, she figured she must. She let out a loud and long sigh, feeling Sadie's hand on her back.

"What's the matter?" Sadie asked. "I thought you'd feel better once you owned up to it."

"I did," Lucy said, "but only for a very short time. Now, I can't help but think how ridiculous it sounds. People don't just fall in love with Dallas Winston. They either hate him; want to screw around with him, or both. I can't love him because he can't love me. He doesn't know how. He's not a good guy."

She realized how contradictory her thoughts were, but it was no use trying to correct them. As long as Dallas Winston was in the picture, everything would be jumbled and contradictory. That was who he was. He was the guy who beat up drunken strangers in the park one day and gave his jacket to Lucy the next. He could be good, but he more often chose to be bad. Wasn't that what was supposed to matter? And if that was the case, why didn't it make a difference in the pit of her stomach?

"He's not a good guy," Jane said. "You're right about that. But you're crazy if you think _you're _a good girl."

Lucy snorted—all in good nature. Jane was right about that. Lucy Bennet had never been a good girl. She grew up far differently than Dallas Winston, but that didn't make her good by default. She had two married parents who loved her and did their best to give her what she needed to get by. She was interested in her schoolwork and found that she could channel her anger through her studies so that she wasn't fighting all the time. But why was she so angry all the time? Her mother said she'd been born that way. She'd just been given enough attention to curb that anger; fooling people into thinking she was no more than a nice girl. A nice girl. The more she thought on it, the more it was the last thing she wanted to be. She didn't want to be cruel, but she never wanted anyone to look at her and say that she was _nice_. _Nice _didn't count for shit if you wanted to make an impression.

"I guess I'm not," she laughed a little. "Remember when I almost shattered that kid's kneecaps at the DX?"

"I'll never forget it," Sadie said. "So, you see what we mean about you and Dally. You're … and I can't believe I'm saying this … a match."

Lucy's palms began to sweat as she thought about that word. _Match_. It didn't just mean a pair of people who liked each other because they had things in common, although as Sadie and Jane pointed out, she had plenty in common with Dallas Winston. A match was a contest—something between two players, the other of whom was your equal who knew you well enough to challenge you. Dally _had _challenged her. He'd challenged her from the beginning, and she figured she must have challenged him. She hadn't heard of him getting into any trouble since she called him out on his aggression that night she saw him writing to Violet. Yes, Dallas Winston might be her match, and she might be his. It didn't mean love, and it certainly didn't mean eternity. But it meant equality. It meant understanding.

And it wouldn't hurt if she could feel the way she felt when their hands touched around that glass of water again. That was a good feeling, and she couldn't recall feeling it for anyone but him.

"I always thought you were so much like him," Jane said. "You read all the time, and I'm not sure he's ever picked up a book, 'cept maybe one of Pony's so he didn't sit have to sit on it. But there's something there. I think it's behind your eyes."

Lucy knew that was true. She loved the way he looked at her because it was the same way she looked at him. It wasn't a narcissistic gaze, though a part of her did believe that all gazing was narcissistic. No, when she and Dallas Winston looked at each other, she felt _understood_. Like someone could see all that fire inside her and didn't want to squelch it out. She needed someone to look at her like that. She wanted to put out her fire too often, and his look reminded her to keep it there. It always proved useful, after all.

"I think you're right," she finally said.

"So, what are you gonna do now?" Sadie asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, say Dally asks you out again. Would you say yes this time?"

Lucy nodded. Worse, she kept nodding. Her heart felt heavy when she knew what she had to think of next.

"I would say yes in a heartbeat," she said. "I wouldn't even care if that made me seem easy. But it doesn't make a difference. He's never going to ask me again."

"Why wouldn't he?" Jane wondered. "He's asked you this many times. Why would he give up now?"

"Because he might be an idiot, Jane, but he's not stupid. He thinks I hate him. I'm sure he's given up since the last time I turned him down."

Sadie shook her head and laughed. It was a purposeful laugh—dramatic, like she had a point. Lucy wanted to roll her eyes. She both loved and hated it when Sadie laughed that way.

"What's got you?" she asked, hoping to speed it up.

"Gosh a'mighty, Lucy," Sadie said between giggles. "You might be arrogant, but so's Dally. Doesn't matter how many times you tell him to go to hell. He just keeps comin' back."

Lucy leaned forward and put her head between her knees, wishing for it all to stop. She'd never tell Dallas Winston how she felt. It didn't matter what Jane said about him or whether or not Sadie thought they made a good match. None of it mattered because she was never going to tell him. She hated fear and ignorance, but both of those reservations were born of a greater anxiety—one for embarrassment. Lucy couldn't risk being vulnerable and embarrassed around Dallas Winston. This time, he would turn her down, and she was sure she would never recover. For the rest of her life (or until she went to college, whichever came first), she would stay silent.

* * *

Despite the fact that it was well out of her way, Lucy walked Carrie Shepard home from the Curtis house that night. Carrie had a book under her arm, which Lucy naturally asked to look at. She was floored by the title.

"_Thus Spoke Zarathustra_?" she said. "Where did you get this?"

"Pony gave it to me," Carrie said. "He said I could use it."

"You could," Lucy thought back to the overman. "That's not the point. He's fourteen. How has he read _Thus Spoke Zarathustra_?"

"Well, how old were you when you read it?"

"Probably fourteen."

"So, then, it's not that strange. See, there's your arrogance again. I thought you were trying to keep that under control."

Lucy laughed a little. This was a side of Carrie Shepard she hardly got to see. She knew how awkward Carrie could get in social situations. When she wasn't trying to hide from everybody, she was always doing something odd, like reading Chaucer or singing a song nobody liked. It wasn't that she didn't know any better. It was that she couldn't seem to avoid going to extremes. None of it was precisely her fault, of course. All her life, no one had really _seen _her.

But Lucy sure did like this side of Carrie. It crept up every now and then after she'd done well on a test or had a successful interaction with Ponyboy. She was relaxed—the smart, funny girl Lucy sometimes knew her to be. It was such a joy to see Carrie Shepard smile and really mean it. Lucy hoped that smile would still be there in the morning.

"So, you told the kid you had a thing for him, huh?" Lucy asked. "How'd he take it?"

Carrie shook her head. "I still don't think he really understands. He's trying, but he's a little behind the times. Serves me right for goin' after a younger man, don't you think?"

"I think you need to give the whole 'serves you right' thing a rest. You seem a lot happier when you're just being yourself, not worrying about what's right and what's wrong."

Carrie snorted as the two of them happened upon her front porch for the second time that day. She pointed toward the door as if it were a message on its own.

"Not thinkin' about what's right and what's wrong? Seems impossible to me. Just look."

Lucy didn't know what to say, and it turned out she didn't even have to come up with a half-assed platitude because Tim came out the front door and opened it for Carrie.

"Get in, kid," he said.

Carrie gave Lucy a small wave goodnight and hurried up the steps. Tim stepped onto the porch before Lucy could leave, a sly smile crossing his thin lips.

"How'd it go with Mathews?" he asked.

Lucy wrinkled her nose. "How did you know…?"

"After I got done kickin' ole Dally's ass, he still had enough in him to go find Mathews and kick his ass, too. Didn't do much damage. Think I saw a cut over one of his eyes by the time Dally was through with him. Probably couldn't do more 'cause I did him up pretty good."

"What happened?"

"I just told ya, didn't I?"

"What did he say to Two-Bit?"

"Oh. I heard Dally yellin' about going back to see some girl named Lilly and tellin' everybody nothin' happened between 'em. You know anything about that?"

Lucy felt the ground spin underneath her. She'd told Dally how much it meant to her that Lilly felt safe. Had he listened? Was he the reason Two-Bit showed up by himself? He must have been. He must have been…

"Why would he have done something like that?" Lucy asked, though she knew Tim Shepard didn't want to answer.

"I don't know, kid. Think it's got something to do with you?"

She thought about it for a moment. No, of course not. It had nothing whatsoever to do with her. Dally was still angry with Two-Bit for hitting on Violet after he'd asked the gang not to. He was still angry that he'd taken the fall for him and gone to jail for something he did. That was it. That was all. Lucy may have mentioned that she was upset about Lilly, but he hadn't gone after Two-Bit in her name. That was improbable. Dallas Winston didn't do things like that. If he was any shadow of interested in her before, that shadow had surely faded now. She had lost any shot she might have had (It didn't matter anyway. It would have been short-lived.), and now she'd just have to live with that. He hadn't gone after Two-Bit for Lucy's sake. If anything, he'd done it for Johnny. Besides, Dally was always looking for a good fight, and this would have been one.

But then why hadn't he done more damage? Why had Soda come back home with the same cut above his left eye?

No more questions. Questions begot hope, and she didn't have room in her heart for that.

* * *

A week passed, and Lucy hadn't seen nor heard from Dallas Winston. It was just as well. She didn't need to think about how she'd squandered any chance she had with someone who could have been her equal match. She didn't speak much about it at the lunch table, though Lilly kept trying to poke and prod her about it. Of course, she didn't put up too much of a fight, either. Lilly needed to talk about Lucy's feelings for Dally (Feelings! She still shuddered at the word.) to take the heat off herself. She and Katie had patched things up as best they could, but the air was still icy between them. It made Lucy sad to think of them distanced from each other like that and hoped they'd resolve it soon, like she did with Sadie.

"Would you relax, please?" Lucy pleaded. "It's not like anything's gonna come of it. I've resolved never to tell him. Maybe I'll never even speak to him again."

"Gonna be awful hard," Sadie murmured.

"No, it won't. We've barely spoken in all the years I've lived here. Once I graduate, it'll be easier to avoid him. See? Easy."

The other girls looked at each other like they knew something Lucy didn't, which made Lucy sick to her stomach. It wasn't just that she hated when people knew things she didn't. It was that she _hated _surprises, and today was October 25—the day before her eighteenth birthday.

"You're not," she said, coming to the realization.

"But Darry said it was OK!" Sadie jumped to her own defense. "He's makin' a cake and everything, and you know how good he is at makin' cakes!"

"You can make a cake and not have a whole birthday party. People do it all the time, especially once they become adults, which is what I'll be. Tomorrow."

"Oh, but you have to let us have a party for you, Lucy!" Jane begged. "We've been plannin' it for weeks, and I've been lookin' forward to it."

"Sounds like a good idea, Jane. We'll have a birthday party for me because you want it. There's logic in that, isn't there, ladies? Having a birthday party for me… for Jane."

Jane rolled her eyes and wiped her hands on her miniskirt. She was finally feeling up confronting Sodapop after their breakup, and if Lucy cancelled this party before it could even get off the ground, she was convinced she'd never have the courage again.

Sadie turned to Lucy with kind eyes, trying to rationalize with her.

"You can't turn eighteen without doing something fun," Sadie said. "And don't give me that bull about celebratin' with your parents 'cause you know there's a difference between a birthday with your parents and a birthday with your friends."

Lucy sighed. She knew that Sadie was right, but she figured the two of them (and maybe Jane if she was feeling up to it) would go out on a different night. It didn't need to be a big deal. She knew why they were trying to make it into one, but she really wished they wouldn't, at least not if _that _was going to be their reason. They'd gotten her to own up to the embarrassing feelings she had. How was that not enough?

"I know what you're trying to do," Lucy said. "It's good of you to try, but it's really no use. He won't be there. He's got better things to do than come 'round for my birthday. Well, maybe not _better things_. Just… things he'd rather be doing."

She poked her chocolate pudding with her spoon and wished what she said wasn't so true.

"I don't know," Katie said. "Maybe you could threaten him. Seems like it's worked before. Only if it's you, though. He'd stomp the hell out of any of us for tryin'."

"Nobody's stompin' anyone," Sadie said. She looked at Lucy, something real and serious behind her eyes.

"He'll be there," she added.

"How would you know?"

"I just know."

Lucy took a deep breath and twisted a lock of her hair around her index finger. She thought of what it would mean to see Dallas Winston again. Did he know that she'd come around to him? If he found out, would that deter him further? That question wasn't worth asking; for she already knew he'd given up. He had better things to do than wait around for Lucy Bennet to tell him she couldn't get him out of her head, either. Well, maybe it wasn't _better things _he was doing, but _other girls_. It didn't matter. It didn't matter at all.

"I'm not getting dolled up, if that's what you want," Lucy said, looking directly at Jane. She could see her dreaming up about thirty ways to style Lucy, and Lucy wouldn't have a single one of them.

"But you _have _to!" Jane said. "It's your _birthday_! You can't just not get dolled up on your _birthday_!"

The other girls stared at her, wishing she'd give into Jane's wishes—all except Katie, who looked bored out of her mind.

"C'mon, Lucy," Sadie said. "You said you were gonna be more open-minded. Besides, we'd all really like helpin' you."

"Except me," Katie piped up. "I don't really care what happens."

Lucy smiled a little bit. "Tell you what. I've got a few other lipsticks. Maybe you can tell me what goes best with what, Jane. Would you like that?"

Jane nodded. Unbridled access to Lucy Bennet's collection of lipsticks? It was nothing short of a dream—a fantasy, really, was more like it.

* * *

If Lucy knew what she was up to, she might have her drawn and quartered. That didn't make an ounce of difference to Sadie. She'd told Darry she was on her way to see Lucy that evening, and he'd believed her, of course. Sadie never really lied to him, except for one notable time when he was eleven, she was eight, and she and Soda sent him a fake Valentine signed by the girl he fancied. He had no reason to believe she was passing the Bennet house entirely, heading instead toward the Slash J to confront Dally.

She made it inside undetected, assuming it must have been her plainness that allowed her to slide on through. No one saw as she walked into the stables and right up to Dally, who was getting ready to leave when he saw her standing there.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Don't give me that," she said. "I wanna talk to you."

"Your big brother know you're here?"

"No, and you ain't gonna tell him. I gotta talk to you about Lucy."

Dally exhaled, hating the sound of that name. It wasn't that he hated her, exactly. He didn't. It was just… _Lucy_. It had been… what? A week since he last saw her? Since then, he'd done a damn good job trying to forget her. She must have known what he did for her, and she never came by to give him so much as a thank you. It wasn't that he cared about manners, of course. It was that when you put skin into the game for somebody as pretty as she was, you expect to see her after the fact. How else were you supposed to work out a payment plan that would please the both of you?

"I'm real tired of talkin' about her," Dally said. "Could you please go away? Thank you."

"I'm not goin' away. Lucy's my best friend, and I'm here for her."

"That's real nice. Now get outta my way."

"No."

Exhausted, Dally took a step back and let Sadie Curtis have her way. He had to admire her for standing up to him—almost nobody talked to him that way. He'd never say it out loud, but he almost liked it when people stood up to him. It was almost like he was looking for people to do it, as long as they were the right people. Sadie Curtis, with her familiar scowl, was one of the right people.

Plus, there were worse things in the world than standing around, talking about Lucy Bennet. At least he got to picture her then.

"OK, kid," he said. "Make it quick."

"Tomorrow's Lucy's birthday," Sadie said.

"Good for her."

"She's turning eighteen."

"Look, you're wastin' my time, so if you have a point, ya better make it."

"We're giving her a party at my place tomorrow night. And I think she'd like it if you were there."

He snorted. Lucy Bennet didn't want him anywhere near her, especially not on her birthday. She'd turned him down… what was it? Three times already? If he got around her, he'd just ask her out again, and she'd just turn him down again. He wasn't itching for that. It wasn't because he couldn't handle the rejection. He didn't need her to say yes to him. A million of them out there would say yes to him in a heartbeat. He just didn't need to be turned down by the same girl four times in a row. That'd make him look crazy. Well. It'd make him look _crazier_. But he didn't care. He didn't care at all.

"She doesn't want me around," Dally said. "I know that."

"You're wrong. And she was wrong. She's been wrong the whole time. I think she knows that now. You gotta come see her tomorrow. You gotta hear what she has to say for herself."

"If she's got somethin' to say for herself, why ain't she here right now? Huh? Why are you the one standin' here and not her?"

"Because she's just like you. She doesn't want to tell you the truth 'cause she doesn't want to look weak."

Dally thought about it for a moment—much longer than he would have thought about some other girl. Were he and Bennet really that much alike? He liked to call her out on her shit, but she really was smart. She was smarter than he was, anyway. She wrote poems. He wrote the occasional note to Violet, but that wasn't a poem. He never thought about what he was putting into those letters. Lucy Bennet thought about it before she put words on a page, and that scared the hell out of him.

Scared? No, not scared. He just didn't understand why anyone would care enough to think that much about anything. That was it. That was all.

But maybe they were alike in more ways than you'd know just by looking at them. He almost chuckled to himself when he thought back to a moment from the summer before. They were down at Crutchfield Park when Shepard said something bad about his kid sister, Angela—not even the weirder one Lucy palled around with. Lucy had been drinking a bottle of Coke, but she dumped it all out into the grass, busted the bottle, and held it out in front of Shepard. Said she'd cut him up if he didn't take it back. Dally must have thought back to that moment about a hundred times over the summer. It was tuff enough.

He took another breath and couldn't believe what he was going to say right there in front of Sadie Curtis.

"You sure she wants to see me? 'Cause I think I wanna see her."

Sadie grinned a little bit, careful not to get too excited and scare the hood away.

"Yeah, she wants to see you. I don't even think she knows how much she wants to see you."


	15. Chapter 15

When Lucy walked through the front door of the Curtis place on the night of her eighteenth birthday, she pretended to be surprised. The only person she fooled was Pony. She'd let Jane doll her up after all, with a different, more striking shade of red lipstick than she usually wore and a dress from ten years earlier that her mother used to wear. She didn't want to look dated, but Jane assured her she looked classic. _Classic_. If there was one word Lucy never would have used to describe herself before, it was _classic_. Now, however, it seemed much more fitting.

She waded through a number of "Happy Birthday!" greetings, politely nodding at each one of her friends as she tried to make her way to the back of the house. Just as she'd suspected, Dallas Winston was nowhere to be found. Her heart began to sink, but she quickly picked it up again. She didn't need him to be there to have a nice time on her birthday. In fact, he probably would have found a way to ruin the whole thing. It was good he wasn't there.

But the second he walked through the door (about ten seconds after Lucy resolved not to care about his absence), she was thrilled to see him.

She didn't let on, of course. No matter what he said about liking her a little bit, and no matter what her friends said about him not giving up on anything he really wanted, she didn't believe it. Dally wasn't stupid. He wouldn't come after a girl who was just going to turn him away. Then again, he knew what would happen if he got caught fighting, and he kept doing that. She didn't want to give herself false hope. After all, who hoped to end up with Dallas Winston?

But as she felt her hands unclench—from fists to palms—she knew. _She _hoped to end up with Dallas Winston, at least for one night.

Slowly, she walked toward him, unafraid of embarrassment for the first time since she couldn't remember when. Soda told him hey, and he pointed at him as if to communicate something secretive. Then, before she knew it, she stood right in front of him. They looked each other in the eye, almost like they had that night at the Dingo. Only now, instead of glaring at each other, they were really looking at each other. When Lucy looked at Dally, she saw someone she knew. He was thinking the same thing. She could almost hear it.

"Didn't think you'd make it," she said, trying to keep her cool.

"Almost didn't," he said. "I guess I'm supposed to tell you happy birthday."

"But you couldn't, right? That would mean saying the word _happy_, and as we know, that's something you've never been."

Dally laughed, and Lucy wanted him to touch her hand again, just like he had with the glass of water. Maybe if she said something … no. She couldn't force it. It had to happen naturally, like everything already had.

"You don't know I've never been happy," he said.

"Maybe, but I can guess."

He smirked and pulled a carton of Kools out of his jacket, motioning toward the backdoor.

"Listen, Darry'll kill me if I light up in here. But I'm goin' outside for a smoke. You can come with me, or you can stay here. I don't care."

At the time (and for a long time afterward), though almost no one would have believed it, Dally really thought that was a romantic thing to say. But as his match, Lucy took it that way, walking beside him as he made his familiar way to the backyard. Lucy thought she might have heard Jane squeal, but Soda pulled her aside before she could taunt Lucy. What was that about? Everyone would find out soon enough. What mattered now was going into the backyard with Dally and owning up to what she was afraid of. She may have used up all her chances, but she'd forge this one out of thin air. That, she could force. Otherwise, she'd never know.

* * *

While Dally took Lucy out into the backyard, Sodapop tapped Jane on the shoulder and asked if she wanted to join him out in the front yard. After he asked, Jane was flustered. On the one hand, she wanted nothing more than to follow him wherever he went. But on the other, she could hear Lucy's voice telling her not to just get up and do what a boy says just because you think he's good looking. For as much as she'd ragged on Lucy for that all these years, it was only now she realized Lucy had a point.

And then she saw his eyes—soulful, honest, and lovely. She'd hold out for a moment or two, but in the end, she knew she'd go with him. She had to. For as long as she could remember, she'd loved him. She never stopped loving him, even after he dumped her.

"What makes you think I want to go with you?" Jane asked. "You dumped me for my brother."

"C'mon, Jane," Soda said. "I wanna talk to you."

She waited a moment, and then she nodded.

"All right, I'll go with you," she said.

Soda grinned that reckless grin she'd always loved so much (though she tried to keep a stone face for now), and when they came upon the front door, he held it open for her. She tried to keep a stone face about that, too, but she had to admit. It was awful nice for a boy to look after her like that. It didn't hurt that it was Sodapop Curtis, either.

* * *

For a minute or two, Dally seemed to be more interested in his cigarette than in Lucy. Eventually, she cleared her throat loudly, and he put the smoke out under his boot. They looked at each other in silence until they realized what the other was doing. Although they must have known they had the same thing to talk about, they didn't want to be the first to look weak. Bitterly, Lucy broke the silence.

"I won't speak first," she said.

He snorted. "You just did."

"Yeah, well, it wasn't about what we have to talk about. So it doesn't count. I won't speak first."

Dally rolled his eyes, all kinds of frustrated with Lucy Bennet. He muttered a phrase she didn't like (but could abide for the time, since at least it wasn't misogynistic) and shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather. More time passed, and Lucy felt her skin grow hot with impatience. She dug her heels into the grass and muttered a few curses under her breath, too. Son of a bitch was stubborn, but so was she.

"Give up?" Dally asked.

"No," Lucy replied quickly. "I could do this all night. If this is how I have to spend my eighteenth birthday, great. I'll do it. With any luck, we'll be here in two weeks when you turn eighteen, too."

"We'll see, won't we?"

They went back to silence. Strangely, it was perfect. Though they weren't talking about how they'd realized they were matched, their obstinacy proved it for them. But it wasn't enough. Lucy was going to get Dallas Winston to say his piece if it was the last thing she did. Of course, that was what he thought about her, too. Maybe they wouldn't get anywhere.

* * *

In the kitchen, Sadie was trying to finish frosting Lucy's birthday cake. Darry had been planning to do it, but he got called into work earlier that day and couldn't finish, leaving the job to Sadie since the party was her idea. As she frosted, careful not to stab the cake with her knife and make it crumble, Johnny quietly came into the kitchen. She didn't notice until he spoke up.

"Hey, Sadie."

Sadie looked up from the cake and smiled a little. To this point, she and Johnny had been on a few dates. Each was relatively pleasant, and each time, he spoke to her more and more. She remembered why she'd had a crush on him when she was younger. Johnny was kind and considerate, much like her brothers, but he could be tough if he wanted. The other night, when they were walking home, a boy Sadie didn't exactly recognize had leered at her—She almost didn't believe any boy would look at her that way since she was Soda's plain twin sister, not a beauty herself—and Johnny calmly (yet sternly) told him he'd better get a move on, looking toward his back pocket. The boy backed off… must have heard about the six-inch switchblade Johnny had been carrying since he got jumped months earlier. But that was why Sadie had always felt drawn to him, whether or not she recognized it: He knew how to be tough when it counted, and that toughness was born from kindness. It was nothing short of admirable.

She wasn't in love with Johnny the way that Jane was in love with Soda, or even the way that Lucy was in love with Dally. But she liked him. She liked him, and for both of them, that was enough for now.

"Hi, Johnny," she said. "Did you know it's hard to frost a cake?"

"Wouldn't have guessed, but I never done it before. Need help?"

"Naw, I'm OK. But… you can stay."

Johnny gave Sadie a shy smile and moved closer to her. He and Lilly had been practicing what he would say next, and he was (much to his own surprise) ready to say it. That kid sister of his could be a sure headache sometimes, but as a girl, she knew about them. Best of all, she knew Sadie. Johnny was sure in that moment he liked Sadie a little more than she liked him, but maybe that would change. They'd been on three dates so far, and every time, Sadie would sit a little closer to him. If he was doing something right, he hoped he'd pick up on it and keep doing it. Sadie was just too cute to lose.

"Hey, Sadie?"

"I'm listenin'." Her eyes were glued to the chocolate cake.

"I don't know what else I can say to you, but… 'Are you – Nobody – too?'"

Sadie put the knife down and clapped her hands together, unabashedly amused.

"Oh, c'mon," she said. "You gotta know that's cheesy."

Johnny stuffed his hands in the pocket of his denim jacket and looked off to the side. Damn Lilly for telling him it was a good idea to quote Sadie's favorite Dickinson that way. It was the last time he'd take advice from a fifteen-year-old kid.

Sadie noticed Johnny getting discouraged, so she reached for him and pulled him back. He looked surprised, almost frightened, and Sadie smiled gently to reassure him.

"It's cheesy," she said, "and I feel like Lilly told you to do it. Am I right about that?"

Johnny nodded. "Shoulda known better than to listen to my kid sister about…"

Before she really knew what she was doing, she grabbed hold of his shoulders and quickly kissed him. It was about damn time.

"It's cheesy," Sadie repeated, "but I liked it."

Johnny bit his bottom lip and let out a laugh of relief. Sadie followed suit as she went right back to frosting the cake.

"And I am," she said, still looking at the cake because she was too afraid to look anyone in the eye when she admitted it. "Nobody, I mean."

"Well, that's all right. Me too."

Sadie smiled and finished off the cake. She always liked that Dickinson poem when she was a kid; still, she never could shake the feeling that it was unrealistic. There couldn't be two of nobody because nobody would go looking for another. They stayed locked up in their houses, or worse, locked up in their own minds. But here was another nobody, and he was taking her out again on Friday night.

That was enough for now.

* * *

Jane stood far enough away from Soda on the front lawn to make him notice. Every time he inched closer, she'd move back just a little bit. It wasn't that she wanted to be far away from him. No, she wanted more than anything to be close to him—to hold him in her arms and tell him that she didn't care that he'd dumped her to save face with Steve. That was what good friends did. She wanted to tell him that she didn't care about what happened.

Except the difference was that she _did _care. No one had made her priority before, except Steve, and as her brother, he'd been almost obligated. If she was going to be with a boy, particularly a boy like Sodapop Curtis, whom she spent her whole life wishing to be with, she needed him to make her a priority. Her parents never treated her like one, but she knew she was worth being a priority. She knew it wasn't too much to ask for. It wasn't too much to ask of the right person. If he wanted to be the right person, he needed to prove it to her. She couldn't just take him back because he was handsome, although her blood cried out for her to do precisely that.

"You got me," she said. "What did you wanna say?"

Soda shifted his weight in his shoes, not saying anything for a few seconds. Then, finally, he said exactly what Jane expected (and wanted) him to say.

"Janie, I'm sorry about what happened before," he said. "I'm sorry I ditched you 'cause I was afraid of what Steve would think. I'm still afraid of what Steve thinks."

Before Jane could answer, they heard a noise from the front porch.

"Aww, hell, Soda!"

It was Steve, standing there and watching the conversation between his sister and his best friend unfold. Jane looked aghast.

"You go back inside!" she yelled. "This ain't about you!"

"Yeah, man!" Soda called out. "That's what I'm tryin' to tell her!"

"Well, let me make it real easy for both of ya," Steve said. "Janie, I don't give a damn if you date this kid. If it works out, then he's my brother. And if it doesn't, I get to beat the tar out of him. It's a win-win."

"For you," Soda said.

"Yeah, but I don't think you gotta worry."

"Can you go back inside, please?" Jane implored. "We're tryin' to have a moment, and you're ruinin' it."

Dramatically, Steve turned around and headed back into the house. Without thinking, Jane and Soda turned to one another, in stitches.

"He's always had such a flair for the dramatic," Jane said, borrowing a phrase she'd heard from Lucy about Lilly. "You remember, though, don't you?"

"Of course I do," Soda said. "Just last week, he was sure he was dyin' of smallpox. I think he was disappointed when I told him it was just a pimple."

"Sounds like my brother."

"Sure does."

Their laughter died down after a minute, and they were forced to confront the real issue again. At the same time, they both turned pink and looked at the grass, then at each other. Soda wasn't usually this embarrassed around girls, but Jane meant more to him than almost any girl ever had. She wasn't one you burned through, and he was awful sorry he'd treated her like that before. She was one you spent time on. How could he have forgotten that?

"Jane." It was all he could say.

"You don't…"

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't've acted that way. I mean, Steve means a lot to me. He's my buddy. But if you're gonna be my girl…"

Jane could feel her eyes light up. It was involuntary. She tried to keep her cool, but it was no use. She'd been waiting to hear Sodapop Curtis say that since they were little kids, and now, he was. How was she supposed to keep her cool?

"Is that what you're askin'?" she said. "Are you askin' me to be your girl?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am. If that's what you want, it's what I'm askin'. 'Cause that's what I want."

Her cool flew out the window, and something told her even Lucy wouldn't have cared. She broke out into the biggest grin she'd ever felt on her face and ran directly at Soda, throwing her arms around his neck. She didn't care that she wasn't supposed to do that. She didn't care that she was supposed to play it cool. Jane knew herself, and she wasn't one to keep her cool—not in love, anyway. Love was really the opposite of cool. They couldn't go together, no matter how hard you tried to fight it.

Soda lost his balance a little bit when he felt Jane's tight hold on him. He laughed a little, lifting her off his chest a bit and tucking a lock of her blonde hair behind her ear.

"Glory, Jane," he said. "But you're stronger than you look."

If it were possible, her face became even brighter. Soda had no idea, of course, but that was the best thing he could have said to her that night.

* * *

"Did you finish that book?"

Carrie looked up at Ponyboy, who now moved to sit next to her on the couch.

"What?" she asked.

"_Thus Spoke Zarathustra_. Did you finish it?"

"Not yet. Why? You miss it?"

"Oh, yeah. My other books get real lonesome when I take one off the shelf. It's like they can feel it, and then they get cold."

Carrie smiled. She hadn't talked to Ponyboy like this since they'd gone to the movies the day before her birthday in the summer. Since then, things had been awkward… cold. They used to have good talks before he'd gone and kissed her (and for no good reason at that). It had been a few days, and Carrie had resolved to take it easy with the kid—for now, anyway. They might have been in the same grade, but he was a whole year younger than she was. He was a whole year behind when it came to girls and dates. Maybe she'd wait for him. Maybe she wouldn't. Either way, she wasn't going to worry about what was the right thing to do or the wrong thing. Lucy was right. She was more relaxed that way… more like the person she wanted to be.

"Tell ya what," Carrie said. "When I'm done with your book, I'm gonna give you one of mine."

"You want me to read a girl's book?"

"I want you to read a book that a girl owns a copy of."

He smiled a little. He liked that Carrie Shepard could argue exact words with him. She was a lot smarter than people liked to give her credit. Was that why he'd kissed her at the movies? No. He didn't want to think about that … not for a while.

"What's it about?" Ponyboy asked.

"Well, I'm not supposed to have it," Carrie said. "Tim would kill me if he knew what it was about, kinda like when you read _The Carpetbaggers _without Darry knowin'. It's about this lady in Paris named Françoise, and the guy she's with, Pierre. They know this other girl, and well … you're just gonna have to read it."

It may not have been the beginning of a beautiful romance, but it was the beginning of a beautiful exchange of philosophy. At fourteen and fifteen years old, neither of them realized there wasn't much of a difference.

* * *

"Hey, Lilly."

Lilly looked up at Two-Bit and felt torn. In a way, she wanted nothing more than to talk to him about that night. But she was smarter than people gave her credit, and she knew it was better to keep her trap shut. She smiled at him, but it was nothing more than polite. At least, that was what she was aiming for.

"Hi," she said.

"Can I sit down?"

She looked around the room, checking for Darry or Johnny, who'd likely kick his ass or panic if they saw him get too close. Ostensibly, everyone had believed Two-Bit when he came back around and told them nothing had happened between him and Lilly, but there was a persistent air of suspicion. They could both feel it. It was simply easier to pretend it wasn't there.

That night, if only for a moment, Two-Bit didn't care that the rest of the gang was watching him like one big hawk whenever he got anywhere near Lilly. He had something to say to the girl, and he was going to say it. Otherwise, he'd regret it.

"Listen," he said. His tone was gentle, something he rarely put on. "I never woulda said nothin' about that night, anyway."

"Then why'd you bolt?"

Two-Bit had to think for a second, which he didn't want to do. It was easier just to react, but he couldn't afford to do that when Lilly Cade was on the line. There was a good amount of people in that house alone who were lined up to kick his ass if he so much looked at her funny. He'd have to make it quick, but he'd have to make it count, too.

"Dunno. Guess I didn't want to see what would happen if they didn't believe me."

Lilly nodded her head slowly. It was about all she could do. She still felt like she was in love with Two-Bit every time she looked at him, and unlike what Lucy and Johnny had been trying to tell her all week, she didn't think it was just because she was fifteen years old. She'd had crushes before. None of them were like this one. Of course, that was the problem with being the pet of the gang's pet. Nobody took a damn thing you said seriously. She couldn't tell Two-Bit how she felt (or thought she felt) about him because he had no choice but to turn her away. More than that, she didn't want to stand by while Lucy and Dally kicked his head in. She'd have to sit back and play it innocent for a while. What could it hurt? She was doing a fine job already, if she said so herself.

"I dig," she said. "But you gotta understand. When I woke up, and you weren't there to talk to Katie with me … and then Darry had to send Soda to come and find you … I didn't feel too hot about that."

He nodded. It was about all he could do, too. It wasn't that he was in love with Lilly Cade. Hell, she was just a kid. How could he be in love with her? But she was Johnny's kid sister, his own sister's best friend, and he'd known her a long time, so she meant something to him. He wanted to tell her that. He wanted to tell her, but he couldn't. Her eyes were so big and so hopeful (which Lilly herself didn't recognize, of course), and he couldn't be the guy who gave her more hope because it would just be empty. It would stay empty for a long time. He didn't know what else to do.

"I know," he said. "I'm sorry, Lil."

"I know."

And she did know, but that didn't make it—any of it—suddenly OK. Though Lilly never heard any whispers from her friends or the other girls at school, she could hear the thoughts buzzing around in her friends' heads—see them dancing behind their eyes. Dally had kicked Two-Bit's ass for trying to run away, and that had been all. Lilly had to deal with the unspoken whispers. She didn't know how long she'd have to deal with them, but she figured she wouldn't be rid of them any time soon.

"You look nice tonight," Two-Bit offered, instantly regretting it.

"I know," Lilly said, and Two-Bit couldn't help but laugh, which made Lilly smile just a little.

For a long time afterward, Lilly was unbelievably proud of that line. And she was right. She looked nice, and she knew it.

* * *

Lucy and Dally still hadn't spoken a word to one another—not about what they were supposed to discuss, anyway. She stared at him. His hands were tucked firmly into the pockets of his leather where she couldn't touch them even she wanted to. Her impatience ripened, and a minute or two later, she decided she couldn't take it anymore.

"Do you remember that summer we were over here?" she asked. "And I kept complaining about being thirsty, so you got up and got me a glass of water without a word?"

Dally nodded curtly. "Yeah."

"Why'd you do it?"

"Dunno. Wanted you to shut up."

"Well, I wanted somebody to shut me up."

He took his hands out his pockets and turned to look at her—really look at her—another time. Of course he'd been with plenty of girls before, but he wasn't sure he'd ever heard any of them say anything as hot as what Lucy Bennet had just said.

Then again, maybe he just liked her.

Before he could try to say anything, Lucy spoke. She didn't care that he wasn't saying his piece anymore. Hers was too important to let it go unsaid. Who cared about looking weak anymore? Maybe there was nothing tougher than spilling your guts to the roughest guy you knew. It was a hell of a risk. Maybe that made her the most dangerous of them all.

"If you were to ask me out again," she said, her voice slow and steady, "I might not say no."

Dally smirked again. He'd known it all along (and he'd been planning to ask her out again since the second Sadie Curtis told him Lucy wanted to see him), but it brought him a joy he didn't quite understand to hear her say it first, almost as if he couldn't believe she liked him until she said it.

"Nothin's changed for me," he said. "You just say the word, Bennet. You say no, and I'll leave you alone till I die."

She grabbed his hand and was shocked when he didn't recoil. That feeling was back when they touched. It coursed through her body like that fire she never learned how to put out. Based on the look in his eye, she could see that he felt it, too. Lucy almost blushed. She knew she'd felt something like this the first time they touched, but it was nothing compared to what she felt now. She knew he wasn't going to say a word, so she spoke again with just one word.

"Don't."

But to her surprise, Dally's face fell from that impish grin to rare disappointment. She furrowed her brow, wondering what he could have thought she meant. Out of impulsivity, he dropped her hand like it was lethal and tore off toward the front lawn.

"Forget it," he said. "Just fuckin' forget it."

In an egregious betrayal of everything she tried to teach the other girls about love, Lucy took off running for Dally, trying to explain herself, but it was no use. She wasn't saying anything, and it was as though he couldn't hear her panting behind him.

It was for the best, Lucy thought. They wouldn't have worked out, anyway. They might have been each other's matches, but their similarities would have torn them down. She didn't need to feel that pain, and neither did he, now that she knew how deeply he could feel. Once she was on the front lawn, she could still see him walking away. She gave up on trying to chase him. She'd never make it.

As soon as she gave up on Dallas Winston, Jane and Soda ambled toward her, happy as they'd ever looked. Lucy caught her breath and asked them what in the world they were doing together.

"Well, we're back on, see," Jane explained.

"Oh!" Lucy said. "Good! Good for you!"

She was surprised by how much she meant it. She was surprised by how much she wanted to feel the same way and how she almost had. How could Dally not have understood that she was asking him not to go? That she wanted him to stay near her? She caught her bearings one more time. It didn't matter. They never would have worked out, anyway. Dallas Winston was just another guy who wanted to screw around. There were a million of them out there. She'd forget about him before the night was up. She'd have to.

"Wouldn't have happened so quick if it hadn't been for Dally," Soda said.

Lucy cocked her brow at him. "What?"

"Dally. A little awhile ago, he found me, gave me a cut above one of my eyes, and told me I better shape up and get back with Jane."

Just like that, Lucy's insides began to twist again. She wasn't going to forget about Dally tonight because she couldn't … because she had already fallen in love with him. She thought of the way it felt when they looked at each other and when they touched … how he'd roughed Two-Bit up for Lilly's sake after Lucy had been so upset … how he'd willingly done time for a buddy and his family … how he could look at her and speak to her like an equal. And now, he'd helped Jane, just like she said she wished he could.

Maybe Dally wasn't a good guy, but he wasn't a bad guy, either—not all the way. He was just a guy, trying to make choices and get through to the end of each day. Lucy would never make most of the choices he did. Yet, he'd put all this skin in the game _for her_. He'd never even given it a second thought—just jumped right in because he thought she wanted him to. How could she turn away a guy like that? How could she turn away a guy who was so willing to fight for the people she loved? Didn't that mean…?

She thought of how well they spoke to one another. It really was true that she could seem to hear and feel as he did. It was more than simply what they had in common. Dally just had to give her a look or say a single word, and she just knew what he meant. Something told her he could hear and feel all of her thoughts, too. He was her match, and she was his. She didn't want to change him or save him from his aggression. All she wanted was to make him more aware of it. He didn't want to change her or save her from her arrogance, either. He just wanted to make sure she knew herself.

Regardless of arrogance and aggression, they couldn't seem to stop thinking about each other. They couldn't seem to stop falling in love. Lucy smiled without inhibition. She was no longer worried about looking weak. It didn't matter when it was your match.

"Lucy?" Jane asked. "Are you OK?"

"I am!" Lucy said. "Oh, Jane … Jane … he … Dally … and I … are just so similar!"

"That's what we've been trying to tell you," Jane said.

"Didn't you work it out?" Soda asked. "I thought you were gonna, but then I saw him take off faster than anything I ever saw. Said he was goin' back to his room at Buck's."

Lucy's heart dropped. She'd never be able to catch up to him in time. If she walked all that way, Dally would surely be with another girl by the time she got there, forgetting her for real this time. Her kingdom for a car! She had a driver's license, but her parents laughed when she asked about buying a car. She silently cursed herself for saving up for college instead.

"I have to get to him," Lucy said. "But I don't have time to walk all the way there. He told me he'd gone after other girls to try to forget me before. He'll do it again if I'm not quick enough."

"You could ask Darry to borrow his keys," Soda suggested. "You ain't drunk, and I think he'd trust you with the car more than he trusts me with it."

"Are you sure?"

"Naw, but it can't hurt tryin'. Can it?"

Lucy nodded, muttered a quick thank-you to Soda, and ran into the Curtis house. The first person to see her was Sadie, who was carrying the chocolate cake on a plate.

"Good, you're back!" Sadie said. "I was gonna light some candles before we sang to you."

She looked around, puzzled. "Wait a minute. Where's Dally?"

"He took off," Lucy said. "He thought I was telling him to get out, but he misunderstood. Soda said he's headed back to his room at Buck's, and I don't have time to walk there."

Sadie nodded, immediately understanding what Lucy was asking without needing to ask it. She put the cake down on the table and shouted toward the back of the house.

"Darry!"

Right on cue, Darry came running out from the back of the house, looking worried—his default expression for the past year.

"Sadie, you better have set the house on fire to be yellin' like that," he said. He looked around and shrugged. "Huh. No flames. Just an annoying kid sister."

"Lucy needs to borrow the car," she said, looking toward Lucy, who nodded obediently.

Darry made a face. Excellent. Here was another thing he had to worry about.

"Why do you need the car, Lucy?"

Though Lucy opened her mouth to answer, Sadie interrupted. "Because Dally thought she was telling him to go away, but she was really telling him to stay because she's in love with him. He took off, and now she's worried she won't be able to find him and clear it up before he forgets all about her. And we've been working for _forever _to get them to realize they're a good match, and I'm not letting her throw it away on her _birthday_."

Exasperated, Darry turned to look at Lucy, who was still nodding like an obedient little doll.

"Is that true, Lucy?" he asked.

"I'm nodding, aren't I?"

"How can you be in love with Dally? I was pretty sure you didn't even like him."

"That's what love's like sometimes, Darry," Sadie said. "Maybe one of these days, you'll know. Now, can you please give Lucy the keys? We're standin' here wastin' time, and you know how fast Dally can be."

Darry sighed and fished his keys out of his pocket, handing them over to Lucy, who thanked him profusely.

"You break that car, you're payin' for it," Darry warned her. "In other words, you ain't breakin' that car. Hear me?"

"I won't hurt it," Lucy said. "I promise."

She turned to Sadie, her eyes nervous and pleading.

"You wanna go with me, Sadie?"

To Lucy's surprise, Sadie shook her head.

"Better if you go on your own," she said. "I shouldn't just up and leave Johnny here without tellin' him where I'm off to. Besides, it'd be awful uncomfortable for me to sit downstairs at Buck's waitin' for you. I think you'll be there a while."

Lucy smirked a little. If she and Dally touched hands one more time, she had a feeling Sadie's prediction wouldn't be wrong.

"I'll see you in the morning, or something," Lucy said.

"I'll be waitin'. Hey, Lucy?"

"Yeah."

"Happy birthday. Now, get."

Lucy nodded, thanked Darry for the car one more time, and tore out the front door. She drove a little faster than Darry probably would have preferred, but it didn't matter. She knew what she wanted, and she had to get to him before he shut her down. As she drove, she thought back to one time when Ponyboy said that Dally always got what he wanted. That was cute. Maybe this was what Dally wanted—Lucy Bennet borrowing a car and driving to a place she didn't want to be just to see him. But Dally wasn't the only person who always got what he wanted. She did, too, if she worked hard enough for it.

She parked the car and tore off for the front door as fast as her tiny body would carry her. She was working hard for it, all right.

* * *

When Buck Merril answered the door that night, he looked pissed right off to see Lucy Bennet standing there.

"What're you doin' here?" he asked. "Why're you here _all _the fuckin' time?"

"Dally," Lucy said, out of breath from the drive, the run, and the sound of Dally's name between her lips. "I gotta see Dally."

Buck narrowed his eyes at her, wishing more than anything that she'd just go the hell away. This broad had no idea what she was getting herself into, and he'd taken it upon himself to make sure she knew.

"You ain't gonna see him," Buck said. "Don't you get it, girl? Dally don't like you any more than he likes the rest of 'em. You're just here. It don't mean nothin' if you go up there. He don't like you. He only likes that you're hard to get into."

Weeks ago, Lucy might have taken the hick's little speech to heart. She might have believed him. But after tonight—after she saw how hurt he'd looked when he thought she'd turned him down again—she knew it wasn't true. Dallas Winston was a match for her. And so, she did something that proved it. She wound up and punched Buck Merril right in the gut.

The punch didn't hurt Buck very much, but it was enough to distract him. She slid right past him in the doorway and ran upstairs to Dally's room. Buck was yelling a few choice words for her, worse than the ones Sadie used to describe Soda and the ones Dally used for Two-Bit, but she didn't care. This was what she wanted. She happened upon Dally's door and felt her heart jump into her throat for what felt like the millionth time that night.

_Happy birthday to me_, she thought.

Lucy was amazed to see that the door was ajar, and there he was, sitting on the bed. Alone. She took a deep breath and hovered over the door for a moment. Maybe she could call it all a wash and run back downstairs, almost like she'd never been there. Buck was drunk enough not to remember Lucy punching him in the gut, so he probably wouldn't mention it to anyone, let alone Dally. He'd never have to know that she desperately chased after him. They could just forget about each other.

Only she wouldn't do that. She couldn't. She had to knock on the door and hear what he had to say. Otherwise, she would never know, and she hated never knowing something that was easy to learn.

She knocked—more like pounded—on the door in case he couldn't hear her over the noise down below.

"What?" he growled. "If you're out there, just come in."

Lucy inhaled deeply, opened the door, and let herself in. She did not smile when she saw him there, nor did he smile at the sight of her. He was too shocked to see her. Why would she be there? Didn't she want him gone? Didn't she hate him?

Then, he saw the gleam in her eye, feeling the same one form in his own. It was clear to him now. She didn't want him gone, and she sure as hell didn't hate him. He'd seen that look before, and it only meant one thing. His smirk turned into a smile to match Lucy's. But he wasn't going to speak first. If he knew anything about her—and he was quite sure he did—she'd let her impatience get the best of her. She'd say something.

"Hey, Dally."

He smirked and put out his cigarette on the nightstand.

"Hey, Lucy."

"Lock the door."

* * *

**And that was "Arrogance and Aggression!" It was… an experience. I know the genre-blending (Was it satire? Was it sincere?) was a little odd to read, and it was definitely odd to write. Sometimes, I wasn't even sure what I was getting myself into. But if you stuck with this love letter to my past for this long, I commend you. This has been so much fun to write—a wonderful outlet for my anxiety, too.**

**On this note, you might notice there's a lot of stuff here that could still be explored. Though it was originally my plan to write "Arrogance and Aggression" and call it a day, it turns out I'm not really going to do that. I've got plenty more to say about these characters, both our greasers and my sweet little OCs. It's safe to say you're going to see plenty more from me and plenty more in the "Arrogance and Aggression" universe.**

**The "expanded universe" will continue with a follow-up piece. I know the title, but I'm not revealing it yet, though I do hint at it in this piece a couple of times. It picks up about two weeks after this story leaves off, it does **_**not **_**follow the exact plot of a classic English novel, and that's all I can say. But if you've stuck with my little story until the very end, thank you. It's been a real treat, and I'm looking forward to more.**


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